I lost my best friend this afternoon. I don’t think I’ve ever tried as hard to hold onto a friendship as I did with this one. I knew I couldn’t hold onto it forever–the end was inevitable, and I’ve known that for months. But when it would end wasn’t clear, and I held onto it as long as I could.
Anyway, my mom and I talked this morning, about life, about losing my best friend, and, as always, a little bit about Joe. When I got off the phone, I recalled one of the quotes Joe had placed in his little "commonplace book" about death: "Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends." (William Butler Yeats)
It prompted me to dig around for quotes on friendship.
- Aristotle: Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
- William Blake: It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
- Henry David Thoreau: My friend is one… who take me for what I am.
- Michael Tucker: Forget your enemies. It’s your friends you frustrate that cause all the problems.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.
- Samuel Butler: A man’s friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage–but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
- Nora Ephron: What I’m saying is – and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or
form – is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part
always gets in the way. - Anonymous: Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and impossible to forget.
- Richard Bach: Don’t be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
I’ll miss her. Best friends are hard to find.