Friday, October 29, 2010

Quote Ninja: Regarding friendship, hard times, and the friends who help you get through them.

"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

"No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." ~ Robert Southey

"The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right." ~ Mark Twain

"If my friend was to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump with them, I would be at the bottom to catch them."
- Anonymous

"Promise you won't forget me, because if I thought you would, I'd never leave."
~Winnie the Pooh~


And that last quote basically sums up my feelings today. One of my very best friends had a birthday on October 12. She had just gotten her license, and was excitedly looking forward to when she can use it to  drive again. My birthday was on the 8th, and we had planned to do something together. But, unfortunately, that was impossible.
You see, she has cystic fibrosis, and, just a few days before we went see her on the 24th, she was admitted to the hospital because her pulmonary functions have dropped dangerously low, and she is losing far too much weight far too quickly.
She hasn't had the best time of it. A few months ago, she found out that her knee joints were disintegrating. This would be bad enough, were she not an accredited dancer, and started teaching dance at the age of 13. Dancing was her life, and the doctors told her that if she didn't stop dancing, her joints would disintegrate that much faster. She was devastated, but she soon made her peace with it, and told her friends at dancing.
It wasn't well received. Her friends completely abandoned her, accusing her of horrible actions that she could never commit. They soon started attacking her mother in stores, yelling at her, causing my friend to have to hide behind some clothes so they didn't see her.
She was pretty depressed (for her) for a while, but then, she again picked up the pieces and cheered herself up again.
Then, the girl that used to be her best friend started spreading her hateful rumours all over the place, causing a lot of trouble and anxiety.
All of this stress took it's toll and landed her in the hospital. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time her "friends" had hurt her, and it was harder to recover this time.

So we met in the hospital, I had cried for hours the day before at how much she was going through, but when she saw me through the door, she grinned widely and immediately sat me down next to her so we could talk. We had a great time giggling and agreeing on how mean some people could be.
When we exchanged presents, I handed her a card with an itunes gift certificate on it (she's completely nuts about music, and the present I had gotten earlier wasn't usable in a hospital, so I'm going to give it to her later.).
She gave me a bag holding a rust red wrap-around bracelet. If you know me, you know I'm completely obsessed with bracelets. It was the perfect present, and I completely loved it.
Then she said "I have one too. It's kinda.... like... a friendship bracelet."
I immediately jumped on her to hug her, almost crying, saying it was so sweet of her to do that.

I will always be amazed at the fortitude of the people who have cystic fibrosis. They go through so much, and many of them like my friend, manage to stay so cheerful. Life's given them some hard knocks and they just get back up smiling. I am always proud of her. I wish her the best life she can have.
And I hope she will always keep smiling as widely as she did on the 24th.

Good luck Miranda! I love you!

2 comments:

Cafe Fashionista said...

What a beautiful post; I am absolutely smitten with that C.S. Lewis quote! Good luck to Miranda!! :)

Islandia Lane said...

The first quote by C.S. Lewis is a favorite of mine, I use it often!

Sorry to hear about your friend, I have a dear friend living with CF - they told her she would probably only live to be in her late teens, she's now 32 and happily married, the progress they are making now in CF research is amazing. So keep smiling with her! :-)

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