Friendship! Step Right Up!

On September 16 WhatFriendsDo.com ‘celebrates’ Step Family Day and National Women’s Friendship Day. I want to tie both of these days together through one family.

I am very blessed with amazing girlfriends. One of my longest friendships is with Libby. We met in a bowling league when we were 19. We’ve shared many fun times together over the years. We each had baby showers for the other, attended one another’s weddings, celebrated quite a few birthdays together. We craft-buddies and have gone on many fun ‘field trips’ to craft stores. Libby took me to my first ceramics class (more on where that led in another blog post another day!). Libby was also one of my very first email-pals – way back in the day (1994) when virtually nobody had even heard of email! It was our link while she lived in another state for a few years. Like most long-time friendships, along with the joys, we have also shared some difficult times. We’ve shed tears, vented stories of anger, and helped one another sort things out more times than either of us needs to count!

We helped each other get through some difficult times. I helped clean her basement after the movers packed the truck. Libby sat at my kitchen table and wrote out the checks for me to sign so my bills would get paid the day after my husband died. Libby’s driven me to doctor appointments. I waited in the waiting room with her husband while she was in the operating room. I drove her kids to the dentist while she recuperated. The list goes on and on. It’s what friends do.

I remember having lunch with Libby one day in the cafeteria where she worked. She told me about this guy she’d been seeing, and how it all started. Naturally, since Libby’s children were preschoolers, my concern was with how he treated her children (I knew he treated her well – the glow on her face said it all!).

Twenty-plus years later, I have so much admiration and respect for Libby’s husband Randy. He is quite an accomplished man, and many would list his business accomplishments, and those are more than commendable. But the saying “any man can be a father; it takes someone special to be a dad” is why I respect Randy. He has been a disciplinarian, a teacher, a great role model, an amazing provider, and has loved Libby’s children with all of his heart and more. To top all that off, both of his children – his by way of his marriage to them and their mom – recognize and appreciate all that he’s been to them.

So what does this have to do with providing support for a friend in need? Families going through a crisis, health challenge, move, addition of a new baby to the family need all the support they can get. Step families probably need more, especially if relationships are tense. Giving encouragement and providing extra help will serve as good examples to help families build their bond during rough times.

It seems quite fitting to me that my friend Randy is celebrating his birthday today – on Step Family Day. Randy doesn’t think of his family a step family – but today it seems worthwhile to me to mention it – because if it helps just one other family blend into perfect harmony, it will be worth these words!! Happy Birthday, Randy!

Today’s Quote: But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. – Thomas Jefferson