“My friend Miriam was a heavy investor. Most of you didn’t know that.” I looked at many surprised faces at my friend’s funeral a few weeks ago. “But it wasn’t financial. Miriam was a big investor in heaven.”
I talked about her investment in God’s Word, her family, her church, and lastly I spoke about her investment in me. She was there when I needed help with after-school drama programs. She was there for my children and my family. When my dad lay unconscious in the last hours of his life, she was in the room with me as we sang hymns to him. And then there was the time she came to North Carolina because Tom and I had lost our head and decided to try organic farming. She stayed for a week in the old farmhouse while we planned the vegetables we would grow. She came up a few months later and helped gather eggs from our “ladies.” We stood expectantly together on the side of the field as Tom drove the Kabota tractor with our new attachment across the red dirt as it built raised beds, laid irrigation tape, covered the beds with white plastic, and covered the edge of the plastic with dirt.
We hooped and hollered and high-fived each other. And when my mother passed away in North Carolina, her body was shipped back to Florida for
burial. Miriam was there also. She organized a group to provide a meal after the funeral. I have had a lot of great friends. And still do. I have never understood it and even questioned a couple of them why they loved me because I was so needy!
When she was placed on hospice, I went and stayed with her until she was ushered into heaven. Friends are important. And here is what I always told my children. To have a good friend, you need to be a good friend. That’s what Miriam was. And that is what kind of friend I try to be.
Here are a three ways you can reach out to someone who needs a friend:
- Take them to lunch, or out for coffee. And listend—don’t talk.
- Send them a card,… just because. I spend ninety-nine cents at Trader Joe’s on all kinds of cards.
- Offer to help them with a home project.
What about you. Do you have a story about how a friend showed up when you needed them?
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