When I worked in the grocery store flower shop, I would occasionally lend customers a bucket so they could more easily transport a vase of flowers in their car. I asked them to return the bucket the next time they came back. We had a tall stack of cheap buckets, so I didn’t keep track of how many I’d given out or who I’d given them to.
A customer who I didn’t even remember returned a bucket one day and apologized for the delay. She said it took her so long to return it because she was staying with her best friend who had died a couple days earlier. They met in first grade and had been friends for 66 years! That sounds so rare nowadays. She told me how they were there for each other over the years and during each of their divorces. Her friend got cancer. After the customer left, I was thinking how that’s the kind of friend I want to have. Of course, that’s the also kind of friend I would have to BE. I don’t think I would qualify right now.
My last post talked about celebrating both large and small milestones in the lives of your friends. I have to admit that, besides birthdays and holidays, I don’t know when any milestones or special occasions are coming up in other people’s lives, because I haven’t been keeping in touch with them often enough or having deep enough conversations to learn what’s happening and what’s important them.
The good news is, we always have the option to course correct.