I’ve been thinking a lot lately about friends, both old and new, as well as those departed.

Thoughts of the departed, of course, bring nostalgia and bittersweet memories; the new friends bring company and current pleasures. But the old friends — the ones who share our deepest secrets, our best and worst moments, and our wickedest recollections — those are the ones who continue to touch us in ways the others cannot.

Oddly enough, I found the best example of this in a comic strip: the inimitable Winnie the Pooh, as he helped his incessantly grumpy friend Eeyore make it through a bad day:

Eeyore: “I’m not much good today, Pooh.”

Pooh: “That’s all right, Eeyore,” said Pooh gently. “Some days aren’t meant for being much good. They’re just meant for being.”

Eeyore sighed. ”It’s just that everything feels a bit heavier than usual.”

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “Then I shall stand here and help you carry it,” he said.

Eeyore blinked, surprised. “You can’t see it, Pooh. It’s not that sort of heavy.”

”I know,” said Pooh. “But sometimes, even invisible things feel a little lighter when someone’s beside you.”

Eeyore looked at him for a long moment, and then — very quietly — said,

”Thank you, Pooh.”

Pooh smiled. “You don’t have to thank me, Eeyore. That’s what friends do — they stay, even when they can’t fix the weather.”

– A.A. Milne, “Winnie the Pooh”

That’s right, Pooh. Through the best and the worst times, they stay. Even when they’re far away, they stay. And sometimes, on a bad day, just knowing they’re out there — at the other end of a telephone line or an email — is all the comfort we need.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
7/29/26