Friendship

If you are a female and if you were in Girl Scouts or Brownies, you might remember a song about Friends. I remember it going like this:

Make new friends,
But keep the old.
One is silver,
And the other's gold.

There may be more verses, but that is what I can remember.

I met my friend, Joyce about 28 years ago. We became friends because we went to church together and were pregnant during the same time and became mothers with babies around the same time. Through the years our friendship has grown. Truthfully, that growth is mostly due to her and her heart.

She has always been there for me, not just in words, but in deeds.

Joyce was there for me those months Brian was at the BP Academy. She had me come over every Tuesday after picking up Jordan up from Kindergarten. We watched a soap together, she cooked lunch (with enough leftovers for the kids and I for dinner) and I ironed (a task that weirdly - I love doing). The boys played. It was a win-win deal.

I can't count the number of times she picked up my relatives flying into Tucson through the years. Normally, it was because someone else I loved was having surgery. She brought snacks up to the hospital waiting rooms, sat untold hours waiting for the doctors to come and deliver news of our loved ones and often would taxi people back to the airport to catch their flights home. She even housed some of us through the years during those visits.

She loves my children. She rejoices over the good things in my childrens' lives and prays over their struggles. She always wants to see them when they are in town even if we can only meet for a quick supper somewhere.

When she had her first grandson - Landon. She graciously let me share in Grandmothering him. She did this because she knew how I longed to be a grandmother and knew I would fall in love with her grandbaby. He was just a day old when she called and asked me to come and see him. I worried that his mommy and daddy wouldn't appreciate me coming so quickly to meet him, but I shouldn't have worried. They apparently have Joyce's gracious spirit.

When my family comes now, she (and sometimes her husband Martin) come down and share a meal with us or spend a day with us. She calls my Mom - Mom and my sisters - her sisters. She even calls Sharlene by her family nickname - Sissie. Joyce is family now too.

Joyce is my "gold" mentioned in the song above. She is a blessing in my life and has been for almost 30 years. The hardest part of leaving Arizona for me is that I won't have Joyce just an hour away. I will miss her.