A Cord That is Unbreakable

Friendship isn’t about who you’ve known the longest. It’s about who walked into your life, said, ‘I’m here for you,’ and proved it.

In designing our new website, my son decided we needed headshots in a pandemic no less! So he set up a “studio” and got to work. In an effort to get me to smile (I’m not a fan of having my picture taken) he said, “Think about Ruby Street.” And there it was - I smiled. Whichever one of the hundreds of shots he took, I hope this one turns out to be the picture he uses on the website.

My son has never been to Ruby Street, it was before his time. But he and everyone else I love knows that this modest little street in Durham, NC was a place of sanctuary for me that always makes me smile. My grandparents welcomed me with open arms and ice cream. The neighborhood children allowed me to join them in summer games. I found a second home and siblings-from-another-mother in the family next door - the Harwards.

Times are tough right now, and during my growing up years, the Jones kids and the Harward kids all saw seasons of trouble. But I can tell you this - when you have friends who prove, over and over again that they are there for you? You can not only survive, you can thrive.

I believe this to be true. For whatever reason, we saw, we see, the best in each other. Spread up and down the east coast, with one out west, and one deceased, we do not hang out often. Mostly we gather at the funerals of our parents - sadly, a recent new ritual. But there is facebook and an inevitable connection that comes when you commit, sometimes at an early age, to being here for one another.

If you do not have a relationship or two or three like this, start today. Be there for someone. It will not be the grand gestures that make it true, it will be the small things, the absolutely precious moments in the here-and-now that can build a bond, or as the scriptures say, a cord, that is unbreakable - even in a pandemic.