Old friends all the way around

 Make new friends, but keep the old,

Some are silver, some are gold.

There really is nothing like an old friend who has known you through many seasons of your life and still enjoys time with you.

That is how it is for my college roommate, Joan and me.  

No matter how much time passes between visits, we are able to pick up where we left off.

It is a gold friendship, for sure.

This is Tiz and Ava in Preschool last week.

Both of them are in kindergarten now, but were happy to come back and visit their old classroom.

Their friendship does not have the history of one as old as Joan and mine, (how could it, they are only five)

but they were still so excited to see another and they picked up right where they left off, too. 

They had left off in the house corner playing with the dolls, but soon moved on to the whiteboard, then the art center, then the puzzles...

This coming weekend, I will be going to Courtney's art/craft show in Oshkosh with another old, gold friend. 

Pam and I have been friends since before we were married when she and John were joining our church.

We raised our children together sharing birthday parties, trick or treating, and countless play dates.

We spent hours and hours on the phone in the afternoons while the girls were in school.

Pam had my girls the day my dad died.  She kept them occupied and busy while we made arrangements and dealt with funeral things.  I loved knowing they were being taken care of by their second mom.

When our girls went to different high schools our lives took different paths and we lost each other for years.

No one's fault, life just happened.

I wasn't with her when she lost her grandson or her husband.

I wish I would have been more of a friend to her then, but none of that matters now, because we have found one another again and it is as if we were never apart.

We picked up just where we left off because that is how it is with old, gold friends.

I am looking so forward to spending Saturday with her.  She has been going through a very difficult time lately and I am so happy to be there for her!