Friends are truly blessings from God, and I have been blessed beyond measure to have enjoyed the friendship of Sandra for more years than either of us care to count.
We've known each other, in some form, for over 35 years, since we worked for the same company. The friendship began to really grow about 25 years ago, when we started going out to lunch together, virtually every workday. Initially, the common ground we shared was a love of food and laughter. But, as we grew to know each other better, our relationship took on greater depth.
As you already know, if you read Sandra's blog, she is witty and wise and insightful and full of faith. She and her Hubby had been high school sweethearts and had married young. I, on the other hand, was still single at age 41, when I first met Doug, my husband-to-be. Sandra was a great encouragement during those days of our dating and, later, our engagement, and provided much wise counsel. She and her Hubby were also very warm and welcoming to Doug, which meant a great deal to him. The two of them have continued to be good friends to us through the 23 years that Doug and I have been married.
I feel as if Sandra's family is my extended family. Over the years, she has shared her children and grandchildren with me to the extent that they refer to me as "AL," short for Aunt Linda.
It would be impossible to enumerate all the ways that Sandra has demonstrated her friendship during these many years. After all, I'm old, and my memory's not that good. But I do know that it's a rare and wonderful thing to have a true friend, one whose friendship can survive the test of time.
The Lord has blessed me with many friends over the years, all of them very special to me. But Sandra is probably the only one who has seen every side of me...and they're not all pretty...and has still hung in there with me.
Thanks for your friendship, Sandra. I don't say it often enough. May everyone be so blessed.
Our friendship IS something special, isn't it. I think God has blessed us both with the sister we never had. Of course, in my case, I had three sisters already, but, love them as I do, you are the only sister I've ever had who is a day to day sister (in the same town and age group), so you know me the best.
ReplyDeleteI love you even when you inadvertently walk across a restaurant with your visor around your knee, and you apparently continue to love me even when I laugh about it -- and remind you about it over and over again! :)
Sandra-Ha! I laughed when you reminded me of that visor incident because there's another incident that I haven't told you about yet. A couple of months ago, I went to the reservoir for a walk. Another walker arrived at the same time, so we walked together. I usually carry my visor until I turn to walk in a direction that the sun is in my eyes because it begins to hurt my head if I wear it for the whole hour. So I was walking with my new friend, carrying my visor, when I saw something I wanted to take a picture of. I put the visor on, to free up my hands for taking the picture, then left it on as we continued to walk and talk. It was probably ten minutes or more before it dawned on me that the visor wasn't shading my eyes as well as usual. I reached up to tug it down a little. That's when I realized that I had put it on upside down. :-)
ReplyDeleteLinda -- this made me laugh out loud! THIS should be your next post. You and I MUST be related because I sometimes write things in comments on other blogs or responses on my own blog that really should have been posts. And I think that's what you've done here. So I suggest you make this tomorrow's post! :)
ReplyDeleteSandra-It did occur to me that a visor post might be appropriate some day. I'll wait a little while, though, just in case there are some readers getting the story from our comments. I'll give them time to forget. If they're our age, that shouldn't take long.
ReplyDelete