Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.” – C.S. Lewis
Without a doubt, the hardest parts of this military life are friends.
Making them. Leaving them. And making more.
Friends are also the best parts of this military life.
The shared connections. The memories. The understanding.
My sweet Grace came home in the first days of school and blurted out:
“A blonde family has moved to Puerto Rico, and Megan is in my class, and she has two sisters, one Tori’s age and one Harry’s age, and her dad is a pilot, and her mom seems organized, I think you’ll like her.”
Just like that, she didn’t even take a breath.
Not only was she excited about having a girl in class who didn’t make her feel like “the only one”, but she was watching out for the rest of us too. I imagine that our friend void was painfully obvious, and she went out of her way to fill it.
Grace is all bows and dresses, books and homework.
Getting dirty or sweaty or silly, especially at school, is not her thing. Enter Megan. A fun friend that chases lizards and plays sports and loves to laugh. She has brought out a wonderful sense of adventure in our sweet girl. Grace is even making regular appearances on the soccer field.
In the last month I have captured some photos of their friendship.
secret smiles
shadows
fashionistas
silhouettes
And sure enough, her sisters have lived up to their descriptions.
A playmate for Harry.
And a friend for Victoria.
And Grace was right, I like her mom too. Whenever I feel like I am facing the darkness she points out the light. And when it comes time to leave, it will be hard. Again. But for now…. we celebrate that we are all in this same place at the same time, going through it all together.
January 30th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
lovely….
January 30th, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Thank you.
January 30th, 2012 at 5:54 pm
This makes my heart so happy for all of you!
January 30th, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Thank you Annette – leaving AR was heartbreaking and it has been so hard to even want to invest the time and emotion into new freinds that we would just have to leave again.
February 2nd, 2012 at 3:32 am
You’ve summed up the challenge of the lifestyle beautifully! I have many long lost friends from my childhood who I’ve reconnected with through the magic facebook. I’m addicted to facebook for hints of others and I’m blessed to find so many online. The foreign service life was a magical lifestyle with darkness and light but the light kept the darkness relegated to the corners where it belonged. Moving is heartbreaking, losing friends is heartbreaking but finding a new home, learning new things, making new lifelong friends while realizing you haven’t lost the old…that just knits the heart back together in a beautiful new way.