I was driving home yesterday.
I saw with the corner of my eye a familiat car getting out of of a car repair shop. After one second i recognized my girlfriend's car. She and i have been there already 3 times last year to fix her old pick up.
It was freezing cold, my daugther wasn't feeling good and we need to come back home. But i have to know how my friend was doing. So i called her on her cell. Her voice was craking. She was obviously crying. She told me the yes, it was her pick up.....it broke...she didn't have the money to fix it ..they told her to basically throw it away....she didnt know what to do....
I told her to stop somewhere, i was just few cars behind her.
I knew she needed a hug.
We stop at a nearby gas station. Her eyes were all puffed and red. She wanted to be cool. But it was just too much....the last drop was making the water spilling off the vase....there wasn't that much more she could handle.
I didnt know where else to say. So i hug her tightly.
We stayed there, hugging each other for few seconds, standing rigth in the middle of that noisy, dirty, cold gas station with cars and trucks and simply nothing for us .....
We felt alone but together. Its was like when the water pours from a vase to another one.
I couldn't give her more than that hug and my words of encouragment. She needed more than that but for that brief moment she let go her worries on my shoulders.
She was powerless, i tried to give her energy. She was feeling lost, I tried to give her a direction. She was desperate, I tried to give her a focus.
Then we say goodbyes. She needed to rush to pick up her daughter. Mine was sitting in my car, already with some fever (i would have found out later at home).
Life was pulling us away. Her old pick up went North. I was going West.
And i said to my daughter, who was asking what was wrong with Miss Pat, that she was a friend who needed a hug and that i gave her my Valentine's gift.
She asked "What it was, mom?"
"Friendship, baby".
And she smiled. I know she understood.
And i know i have been the lucky one yesterday because i could be the giver.
In the future, if i might need that hug back (and i know i will) she will give it to me. With the interests.
That's what friends are for.
