Silver and Gold

Ask any Girl Scout. They’ll tell you the first song they learned as a Brownie. The spirit of those fourteen words runs through our veins just as surely as cookies in March.

My grandmother was a woman of few words. Kind. Loving. A woman of faith and peace. We shared a birthday. She taught me many things:

mundane things like how to make the perfect roux and proper ironing technique by putting the wet, starched items in the freezer before ‘doing the deed’. More important life lessons: smelling a lie and prioritizing family and friendships.

She spoke of choosing friends wisely by modeling the passage from Sirach: Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter; whoever finds ONE finds a treasure. Faithful friends are beyond price, no amount can balance their worth. My grandmother always punched the word one  as if there could only be one in a lifetime. Past the half century mark, I better understand what she meant.

Friendships are indeed treasures. The best are based on qualitative not quantitative factors. Time and geography aren’t a part of the equation.

Life was slower paced for her, my mother. Yes, even for me growing up. It was common place and even expected that families and close friends lived across the street, around the corner, across town, in the next town.  FA-57140 was dialed on a red rotary then on a pink princess push button. The soundtrack of our lives was played on 8-track tape players or cassette decks and answered to names like “Davy”, “Bobby”, and  “Donny”.  Even when we dreamed of moving beyond the four walls of home we never imagined leaving behind such good friends….blood brothers and sisters….we could and would never forget. How could we? We would never forget such treasure….it’s buried in our hearts forever.

Silver. Gold.

There is a second verse of that Girl Scout song:

The story repeats itself with each move. Each breath. Never leaving behind. Waiting. We carry with us those special ones. Always faithful. Always sturdy. Treasures. 

Like silver and gold. No sum can balance their worth.