If there is one ingredient
which adds warmth and love
to our lives ... it is Friendship.
If there is one relationship to
help us through all the others ... it is Friendship.
Friends surround us with
the beauty of their caring.
With friends we can share
what we see, what we feel
and what we love.
Friends help us with our problems
because they listen.
And as they listen
we begin to hear the language of
our own hearts.
With friends we can
walk along the remembered
paths of our lives and
completely share our experiences.
With friends we can work
the soil of forgotten dreams
that needed to be tended and
nurtured once again.
With friends we can
plant the seed
of our hearts
new dreams.
We can always return to a friend
like going back to a special place ...
and find the same warm feeling
unchanged by time or distance.
Life gives us friends
so we can share the precious times
and memorable moments of
being children, and teenagers,
and adults, and parents,
and grandparents.
Life gives us friends
so we can share
the growing up ...
and growing down
and old.
With friends we have a place to go
to be accepted and understood.
Together we can laugh.
Together we can cry.
Our thoughts are heard,
our feelings are held
in the heart of a friend.
With friends our lives are made
more full, more rich, more open,
beautiful and blessed!
The glory of friendship
is not the outstretched hand,
nor the kindly smile,
nor the joy of companionship...
it is the spiritual inspiration
that comes to one when
he discovers that someone believes
in him and is willing to
trust him with his friendship!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
