Who doesn’t hope to find in life not only friends, but “true friends.” When I think of the qualities of a true friend, I think of:
- Always authentic
- Listens intently without judgment
- Appreciates my idiosyncrasies
- Isn’t unduly vociferous
- Will come to my defense, sometimes without having to speak a word
- And so on…….
Trust me, this is all going somewhere.
I took a grandson into a woman’s clothing store while my wife made a purchase there. We were babysitting while she popped in to find something. I let the boy run around without much supervision (watchful from a distance), and then without any warning, no guidance or prep on my part, just out of natural instinct, I beheld him holding a mannequin’s hand.
When it was apparent the relationship was warming up, he then gave her (I guess I can give the mannequin a gender based on how she was dressed?
) a hug. I caught this on camera. It was so sweet and tender.
Most of us won’t discover our friends by going to a store and holding a mannequin’s hand. In fact, that might be very weird and land you in a place you didn’t anticipate. But think of the qualities of this upstart friendship between my grandson and the mannequin, and you can laugh a little at how some of the qualities of friendship between an inanimate object and a human being are strikingly similar.
I find myself sort of out of my element wandering around a woman’s clothing store, so thankfully my observance of this start-up friendship was short lived as my wife finished her business and we separated our grandson from his new-found friend.
May we all discover true friendship in unexpected places.
