This will be a quickly written one.  Interesting to observe my parents and their two completely different views on friendships.  It's come to light especially this week.  My normally very energetic mother (she's actually been called "effervescent") has been in the hospital for 8 days.  First it looked like a bad flu, which she never gets, then suspected pneumonia, and the latest, a spot on her lung with further tests.  All this to say, everyone in her family is either out of the country or several hours away by car.  My dad is actually on a ship in the Middle East.

My Mother is being steadily inundated and supported with visits by friends and people from church. She has always been a good friend to many, showing up faithfully, conversing warmly and putting down roots wherever she lives.  Now it's all coming back to her and then some.  My dad, on the other hand, insists from afar that having family nearby is always the best and is dismissive about the value of friends.  This is a man who travels the world, has a vast data base of "contacts", and whose own parents both had funerals with no more than 5 people in attendance.  I was at one of those. Shocking, really.

For me, friends are my family close by.  Maybe this is a wake up call for me to value them even more and tell them so.  Disturbing as my Mother's situation is, it's gratifying to watch her enjoy the fruits of her cultivated relationships.