Friendship - Not Always What You Expect

Today is Friday Show & Tell, hosted by Kelli at No Place Like Home. Go there to find a list of participants and many wonderful postings!

When I was growing up we lived in a big old house in an old neighborhood. One day when I was in 9th grade, I walked home from school passing a large brick house at the end of our block. A
tiny, wrinkled silver haired woman called out to me from an upstairs window, "Hey you, the girl with the golden hair! Come in and sit with me." I did so and it changed my life for one special year. Almost every day that school year I heard the familiar call and I was happy to spend an hour or so with my new friend. She made cookies in anticipation of my visits and we had many wonderful talks almost every day that school year. As the school year neared it's end my special friend started sending me home with gifts. One afternoon she asked me to bring my father back with a truck - she said she had a gift for me I couldn't carry home. So my father and I did as instructed. We were on our way home shortly afterward with an antique bedroom set - a four poster bed, a dresser, a desk, and a large mirror. It is the bedroom set my husband and I started our marriage with and I still have the dresser, desk, and mirror - the bed broke beyond repair within a few years - ok, you can stop laughing now!

Here is the mirror, hanging now in my art room.

Not long after the day I received the bedroom furniture my friend sent me home with a lamp, pictured below. As it turns out, it is a German Dresden lamp. I have not been able to find it listed anywhere with an exact year or value.

This is my sweet Dresden lamp.

Within weeks of the day I carried that precious gift home I approached my friend's house for my daily visit and was met by her nephew. My sweet friend had passed away while I was at school. I had never seen him before but he called me "the girl with the golden hair". It seems the wonderful hours spent with my friend were just as meaningful to her as they were to me. I remain convinced that my dear, lonely friend knew her life was nearly finished. I still feel honored that she chose me, an unfamiliar teenager, to share her last year with and to gift with treasured items of her marriage.

I guess the moral of the story here is, never discount a potential friendship not matter how ill paired you seem to be! You may find a cherished friend and incomparable memories.