A man who has friends...

My mother tried her best to drive it into my brain.  I was always lamenting the fact that I didn't think I had many friends and she would give me a verse "A man who has friends, must show himself friendly". 

I was, in today's vernacular - not so much friendly - when I was a child.

One of my childhood friends died recently.  Well, no she wasn't really my friend.  I never liked her.  She used to get on my last nerve.  I was mean to her.  Once (in my granddaddy Nesmith's view), I even slapped her.

If you know me today you might think.  Paula didn't have a lot of friends?  And hopefully you will think "Paula was mean - mean enough to slap someone?"  How can that be?

I have no idea when it changed.  But I'm glad it did.

By today I can tell you I have so many friends.  I have a close circle (most people think that should be three, but mine is more like five or six and that's not counting my mother, my daughters, my sister and sisters in law and Coulter).  I have an expanded circle of at least 12 (and that includes my childhood and high school friends) and another expanded circle and another.

And I'm forever meeting someone that I feel like - Wow, I'd love to be friends.

And it doesn't matter - color, social status, education - or in that little girl from childhood's case - weight - I have found it that my mother was right - I did need to be friendly.

Actually years later I had an opportunity to be nice to that little girl.  She was in the 10th grade when I was a senior.  She had a huge crush on one of my dear friends, who actually lived in our home that year.  She so much wanted him to take her to an event and I wielded a bit of influence and she had the date of her lifetime (at least up until then).  When I read her obituary, it seems that her life has turned out well and the words like kindness and caring came through loud and clear.

I wish I had had the opportunity to know her as an adult. 

And I would like to have told her - I finally learned that I am not the be all and end all and I should have never put her down like I did when we were little girls.

Now I know that my attitudes growing up had a lot to do with self esteem, but that's for another time. And what I know best today-is that it's always good to learn something!