Long-distance friendship

My heart is heavy tonight. The mother of one of my dearest friends is dying. While there is nothing I can do for her mother, there are so many things I want to do to comfort my friend.

I want to sit with her in her mother's room as she holds her mother's hand or plays her autoharp and sings her mother's favorite folk songs. I want to bring her matzo ball soup, and wonton soup, and 7-Up and Fritos, and Hostess Twinkies, and all her favorite comfort foods.

I want to listen when she wants to talk. I want to talk when she wants to listen. I want to sit quietly with her when there simply are no words. I want to cry with her so she'll know she's not going through this pain alone.

I want to do all these things and more, but there's one reason why I can't. Actually, there are 2,628 reasons that I can't. That's the number of miles between her house and mine.

Any other time, the distance is manageable. In fact, we rarely even notice it. Thanks to e-mail and unlimited long distance telephone service, we communicate several times daily. We know what's going on in each other's lives on an on-going basis. I don't keep a diary, I simply write about my day, about my thoughts, dreams and goals in an e-mail. And, much better than a diary, she writes back. We support each other, we encourage each other, we lift each other up, and we reign each other in. She is the sister I never had, only better, because we chose each other.

But tonight, the distance matters, and I'm sure it will for a long time. I know that Susan knows how much she means to me, but I'd still like to share some quotes I found that say it better than I can:

"What is a friend? A single soul in two bodies." - Aristotle

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." - Author unknown

"My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me." - Henry Ford

"This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joy, and cutteth griefs in half." - Francis Bacon

"Life is partly what we make it, and partly what is made by the friends whom we choose." - Tehyi Hsieh

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one." - C. S. Lewis

I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing. - Katherine Mansfield

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. - Henri Nouwen

I love you, my friend.

Your sis,

Syd