By April Terry

“Maybe the best thing that you can do for him is just to be his friend and be there.”

Those were the words from the movie “The Soloist” that we saw this afternoon. After trying to save Nathaniel Ayers from a life on the streets and mental illness, Steve Lopez finally comes to realization that he is unable to save his friend and unable fix him. I reflect upon those words today because before the movie, we ran into a friend who was the very lady who brought together my husband and I nearly fourteen years ago under the guise of playing cards. Her invitation resulted in our marriage less than a year later and although I live within a mile of her home, I haven’t seen her in years. You could say that we haven’t exactly “been there.” We caught up over dinner this evening after the movie, but I felt a pang of guilt at my own absence.

On Saturday, we went to the funeral of my husband’s coworker. She and my husband had worked together for nearly twenty years. In fact, she and her husband cooked the tri tip for our wedding feast. There’s nothing like a funeral to remind us how precious our time is on earth. After the funeral, we sat at the table of a lovely lady named Diane. The meat of our conversation with Diane started when I asked her where she was from, and she told me that she was from Canada. This led to my asking if she had any family in this area, and she told me that she had no family left at all. I empathized with her that this is when church family becomes most important, and she agreed. Then, she shared with me her experience that she has learned over her lifetime that people aren’t always meant to be part of our lives forever. People come and go within the framework of our lives sometimes for a time, sometimes for a day, sometimes for a moment, and sometimes for a lifetime.

I realized the real wisdom in what Diane had to say, but lately I have been struggling with my own absenteeism and yet, I know that I likely could not stay engaged and active in every relationship that I have allowed in my life. So, where do I draw my line? What do I owe those people who have stretched out the hand of friendship to me and I to them?

I think that we are transients to our relationships. We are wanderers, nomads who migrate through life and bring to others what we have at the time that they are present. For me, there is only one relationship that goes with me everywhere, but that relationship has made me feel more responsible for those who enter into my territory. That relationship has made me intensely aware of who is entering my airspace and how I should treat them while they are moving through. That relationship has been telling me to “be there” and so I keep stretching in hope that I could do a better job at that.