Long Lost Friendship

I was am (not sure which is correct, as my Dad has been retired from the forces for some time now), but then again do you ever stop being an "army brat", an armed forces dependant, oh anyway, as anyone who grew up on Army/Navy/Airforce bases knows you or your friends tend to move around every 3 years or so. You get used to making short term friends, and then you move on to make new ones, if your lucky you keep some as lifelong friends but I think overall they are far and few between the ones who moved on every other year.

I just recently was contacted (believe it or not through Classmates.com) by one of those long lost friendships.

What a great feeling it is to renew friendships with someone who had meant a great deal to you, to find out how their lives panned out and to be able to carry on a current relationship (even though it is mostly through Facebook! But then again now my facebook isn't just for games and farming anymore!)

During one of our recent conversations I learned something I never knew about back when we were friends hanging out together. We were 10 the year her mother died (which is now 43 years ago, from open heart surgery) which I do remember and always will remember the helpless feeling I felt during that time not knowing what to say to her. She told me my Dad had gone to the funeral (which was not held locally). She had been feeling very alone and scared among relatives she barely knew and when she saw him there she went over to him and he picked her up and kept her on his lap the entire afternoon. She said she felt safe and secure and to this day had always wanted him to know what that had meant to her.

I passed this along to my Dad and he was deeply touched by her words and now she also feels better having been able to pass along her feelings to him after all these years.

 Sometimes life throws out some good curves too!