F is for Friendship

By far the most popular vote for the letter F among my Facebook friends was Friends.  But I’m lumping in family along with that.  I will also attempt to work in:  farming, foresight, fudge, France, fresh food, freak show, fe fi fo fum, fantabulous and my freakin’ hilarious son-in-law’s response, jambalaya. 

Now where do I begin…? 

I think I will begin with the very first friends that I can remember.  The first’s name was (and I presume still is) Bernie and he lived two doors down from us when I was a preschooler in Calgary.  That is, unfortunately, all I can remember about him.  I haven’t seen or heard from him since I was five and my family moved to Chilliwack.  There was another boy, who lived between Bernie and I, but I cannot recall his name.  My only memory of him is that he used to whisper to his mother’s bum when he wanted something.  I do remember playing with these two boys, particularly when their mothers babysat me, and I often wonder what ever became of them.  I think of them still, though, as friends, for there is no other way to think of them.  In spite of my vague memories and total loss of contact, they remain special to me somehow.

Since then I’ve had lots of friends.  People have come and gone in my life, as people are wont to do.  There have been many!  I estimate the number of people that I’ve personally met to be roughly 12,000.  These include friends, teachers, customers, clients, colleagues, co-workers, passing acquaintances, servers, service providers, family members, bosses, friends and relatives of all of the above.  Some of them are farmers.  Some of them have been to France (and want to go again).  I’ve shared fudge and fresh food with some of them.  Some of them are freakin’ hilarious and a few have been real freak shows.  Some of them have amazing foresight.  Some of them don’t know their alphabets very well – could be due to too much spicy jambalaya having affected their brains, but I’m not sure.  Many of them are simply fantabulous!

Wouldn’t it be cool to gather all the people you’ve ever met together in one big friend reunion?  Imagine all the thousands of people you’ve met together in one place…  Yeah, maybe not.  The reception line would be a killer!   And the embarrassment of all the forgotten names would just be too much.  And what if the freak shows showed up?  Oh, well.  For a second there, it was a grand idea. 

Friends are precious.   And I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the friends who so amazingly stepped up over the past few days to vote for my daughter’s art work in the Fairies and Fantasy Art Awards Contest (if you haven’t voted for Alison Spokes yet, please do:  http://selinafenech.com/2013/2013-art-awards-round-one-voting/)  So many people shared this link and asked their friends to vote, collectively raising Alison into the top five.  Whoot!  (She so deserves to win this.)  This was testimony to the miracle of friendship, the wonder of friendship and the beauty of friendship.  Thank you all for your amazing support!

Well, it’s time to get my day started here.  Fe fi fo fum, I hear the call of the vac-u-um.