I received via airmail an honest-to-goodness, real old-fashioned Christmas card a couple of weeks ago. You will agree that this is highly unusual in this day and age of e-everything.
The sender was sweet, sentimental, apologized for the silence of the years, asked about me and our mutual friends but unfortunately forgot to write a return address. I would have loved to acknowledge the gesture with a card of my own.
But the joyful surprise stayed with me through the holidays. I remembered old times. Suddenly everything about Christmas brought back the faces of persons I once described as my best friends forever, but who somehow got lost in the shuffle of life. How does that happen? When do people near and dear to you start falling through the cracks?
I have often wondered where friendships, once thought to be solid and indestructible, go when they shatter and die.
Charles Kingsley, chaplain to Queen Victoria and prolific poet of the 19th century, wrote:
“Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put together exactly the same way.”
I have heard that said about trust. But are friendships just as fragile?
I truly don’t know at which stage of a “falling out” it is acceptable to quit trying to mend what is broken and simply walk away. How long must one try, and does it matter that the efforts are totally one-sided?
How do we know and when do we decide that staying is worth the time and not just a waste of our tears?
They say that sometimes you have to give up on people, not because you don’t care, but because they don’t. I don’t know about that.
Nagging thought
We are never sure. If we quit, there may always be a nagging thought that perhaps we should have stayed just a little bit longer; that maybe if we had bothered to explain or taken the time to ask or pursue, the relationship could have been saved. I hate that feeling. The “what ifs” and the “should haves” have a way of grating at your soul.
Then there’s the other side of the problem that asks, “Why me? Why should I make the first move or do all the explaining? It takes two, blah blah.” We allow pride to step in and take over. But when pride wins the argument, all is lost.
We have become very loose and sadly have diminished the genuine and special meaning of this “F” word. Young people today are quick to attach the term “friend” to someone who may in reality be just an acquaintance or a casual encounter.
Many years ago, I was blessed with one perfectly true and dearest friend. I listed her in my phone directory not in the usual alphabetical order, but under “F” for friend.
They say that friendship is not one big thing; it is a million little things. And she was all that to me.
But sometimes no matter how strong the friendship seems or how rhythmic and in tune the vibes are, something still goes wrong.
Life happens.
Suddenly trust and loyalty are thrust under a cloud. Words are spoken in anger, or maybe no one says anything at all. Silence often can be more lethal than shouting and screaming.
There was a time when feelings were communicated eloquently by an indifferent stare, a look of dismay or pain, or eyes rolling in silent scathing sarcasm. For some of us it is a sudden turn of the head—“God forbid our eyes should meet!”
With today’s technology, we can express all these with an outburst on e-mail, an emoticon, a quick text in “that tone of voice,” or a pointed post on Facebook.
Or worse, you hit the “un-friend” button, and with just one click you send a lifelong friendship into oblivion.
No matter when or how it happens, it can be heartbreaking. Explanations don’t change a thing and apologies are empty. Nothing can assuage the pain.
But losing that friend is not what marks us for life. It is when we give up; when we close the door on any hope of reconciliation.
The Bible teaches us not to let the sun set on our wrath. My pastor last Sunday said we must “forgive quickly.” Are we listening?
Don’t allow your pain to turn into a bitter rage. Anger keeps you captive and chained to the person who has wronged you; eventually it consumes you. You will drink the poison but foolishly expect the other person to drop dead.
Look instead for ways to straighten out the mess you created. You are not alone in this predicament, but if you must take the blame, do so. Reach out. Pick up the pieces.
In the words of American author Amy Marie Walz: “We all lose friends, we lose them in death, to distance and over time. But even when they may be lost, hope is not. The key is to keep them in your heart, and when the time is right, you can pick up the friendship right where you left off. Even the lost find their way home when you leave the light on.”
I wish I had written this.
In our Op-Ed page last Thursday, I read “Obasute” (by Antonio Calipjo Go) and my heart is still filled with tears. It is beautiful! Do yourselves a favor. Read it.
Prayers
I join the world as it mourns the victims of another senseless terrorist attack, this time in Paris.
Why, God?
