My Best Friend

Making friends with someone who is older, someone who reminded you of your mother, with both of you, benefitting from the interactions, translated…

The setting sun had, casted a very long shadow of Kim and me, in order to comply with her slowed-down paces, I’d, intentionally, slowed myself down considerably, the two of us, with a total of five legs, the extra one was the umbrella she used as a cane.  And, everything she’d weathered, the good, the bad, the ugly, everything became, harmonious like songs, mixed in, with her gentle laughter, echoing around us, as we’d, walked around the track fields, I’d looked closely, at her face underneath the rays of the setting sun, all I saw was, her elegant smiles, which had, made her wrinkles, appeared, ordinary, so, the smiles of an aging face can also, bright up a day!

I’d met Kim in an English song class, she’d caught my eyes, with her white head of hair, and, I was, totally awed by her want to try new things.  Although after she’d battled with it for just one month, she’d, dropped the course, my singing lessons to her after the classes, helped turned us into best of friends.

In interacting with this elderly woman of over eighty, it’d seemed to, rouse up the nosiness in me again, I took her along, on my handicraft classes, and, as we’d made the flower presses, the handmade soaps, I saw that smile, returned back onto her face again, I knew she was, happy, and, because of her happiness, my mood was, lifted as well.

I can’t help, but recall many years ago, as I’d still worked my nine-to-five regularly, seeing how my mother carried out her backpack, immersing herself in the elderly college courses, I’d made this silent vow, to go to school with her after I retired; it’s just, that my mother never got to live out this wish I had with her, and I still, carried the regrets with me, and, Kim, who’s my mother’s age, seemed to have, helped me find closure to this promise I didn’t get to keep with my own mother.

The schoolyards of the community was the best place to exercise in the early evenings, in our slow-paced walks, I’d taught Kim to sing her favorite English tunes, and, heard her shared with me, the wisdoms of her life, the experiences she’d weathered through, and I’d realized, that what I was lacking, was just what she’d, given to me, the sturdiness, the unbreaking nature of the previous generations.  And, as we’d stopped, she’d told me, in a serious manner, she’d told me that she was thankful, that I don’t see her as an old lady, that I was, willing to be friends with her; and, there was, this mixture of emotions inside of my heart, and I couldn’t find anything else to reply back to her, but the playful, “one day, I will become, just like you, a cute old lady too!”

The distant skies, the setting sun reflected against the light of the dusk, it’d, made this beautiful shadow, like the friendship we’d struck up, I’d, bathed myself, in the light of the setting sun, bathing, in Kim’s smiles, which were, radiant, like the setting sun.

And so, this showed, how friendship is transcendent of the years, and, when you’d made friends with someone who’s older, you get to take from their life experiences, after all, they are, older than you are, and can offer you knowledge or advice on things that you may not have the years to experience yet, and this younger woman brightened up this elderly woman’s life too, so, everybody benefitted from this relationship!