CLOSE FRIENDS

November 3, 2015

A colleague wondered aloud this morning why it seems that good friends sometimes refuse to answer calls or text messages when they have already moved to another place, when before when they were within the vicinity, they were so quick to text back even through simple greetings.

Sometimes one has to accept that these things do happen in life, and they are perfectly normal.  Because there is so much going on in our individual lives, the moment we go out of the radar of our old friends, we tend to spend less time connecting with them while getting busily connected with those within our immediate present circle.  Even family members who get separated by several miles and time zones tend to spend less time as the days go by with catching up on each other.  There are others who could go on for months and even years without saying even a hello to their loved ones.

I remember a memorable line in one of Emilie Loring’s novels, “Proximity is an insidious jade”.  I am not sure exactly what danger being near to other people one gets exposed to other than the danger of becoming all too familiar and exposing one’s vulnerabilities to others.  I know for a fact though, that the more we associate with the people closer to us, the more we influence each other.  And the farther we go from friends and loved ones, the more we tend to forget their faces, even though we may remember the happy times we shared with them.

Maybe this is the reason the Proverbs advise that people should have as many friends as possible, for “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity,”...”A man that has friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother,” ...”Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful,”... “Your own friend, and your father's friend, forsake not; neither go into your brother's house in the day of your calamity: for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off”.

And then again, the Preacher said these too in the book of Ecclesiastes: “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he has no one to help him up.”

When supertyphoon Yolanda came to ravage Eastern Visayas and whole families were swept away, those who survived mostly were not helped by their relatives and loved ones who were not there anymore, but by their neighbours and friends.  Although I have experienced it many times before, but still I say to those who are sad and depressed in feeling that their friends seemed to have left them behind, do not despair.  When our friends leave us and move on with their own lives, GOD will send us new ones to walk beside with along the journey.