Friends

Some people are good friends and some people are lousy ones. I happen to fall into the latter category. I don't do enough to let my friends know how much I care. When I'm busy or stressed I tend to go into 'cave man' mode. I shut down all parts of my life other than the one I have to deal with right then and there. At work I shut down my family life, at home I shut down my work life, and when I'm busy shutting down sometimes I forget to open back up when I need to... my friends suffer the most. I'm notoriously bad at responding back to emails immediately. It's not that I don't want to respond. In fact it's largely a matter of how I manage my inbox - I get so many emails at work that I put all of the incoming into a folder that I'm meant to go back to... and then I get busy and don't. So many emails have got stuck there... so many friends.

I am lucky to have in my life some very good friends - people who keep caring.

Eight years ago when pregnant with my daughter I found a forum on I-Village for people expecting children in July 1999. Through that forum, and it's many moves to other boards, through splinters because of disagreements etc, I have met a bunch of wonderful people. People whom I do not let know how much they have meant to me. These are the people who, when I was diagnosed with MS, arranged for a fantastic gift basket to be delivered to my door. These are the folks who, through marriage troubles and parental illness, have reached out and held me up. These are the people who I turn to first because in many ways they know me best. There was never any need to do things for appearance sake. Over the years I have met many in person, and all have made an impression, but let me tell you about two special folks.

These friends recently opened their home to us when I went for my initial consult with Dr L. We hadn't seen them for two years, when they last visited us, but it felt comfortable. We were able to connect again as we would had we seen each other a month ago. I like them both - I met them through their passion for their 7 year old son. Over the years they have shopped for me, allowed me to use their home as an extension of UPS when US sites did not deliver to Canada, we have met them in Chatham for a fun weekend with our kids, they joined us for my daughters' 5th birthday and the days around (one day I'll blog about the raccoon incident...I'm so glad they were there to share that!) and the list goes on. But it is their most recent act of friendship that brought me to my blog today.

On Thursday I am going to have the largest surgery of my life. My plumbing will be completely reworked and I will basically have to learn how eat again. I will be in hospital for 3 - 4 days after which they have graciously allowed me to come stay with them. This is a huge in so many ways. Firstly, it means that I will have someone around should something go wrong. I'm not expecting it to but you never know. By them opening up their home it means that my husband can go back to our home to be with the kids... that's important to me. Secondly, it brought home to me what true friendship is about. Post surgery may not necessarily be pretty but they will be there for me anyway. I will be forever grateful.

One of my goals is to be more like them. To be more thoughtful and open in my friendships. To always be able to extend that helping hand when someone is reaching for it.

Thank you friends... I am so excited to be seeing you in just a few short days.