My closest friend, my friend for thirty years, is seriously ill in hospital with cancer, just half an hour’s drive from here, and I can’t go to see her because of this snotty virus. I can text and I can write, and I do. She has her loving and stalwart husband and kids around her, and that’s what matters in the end. She knows I love her and am thinking about her, but I’m sad I can’t visit and hold her hand for a while.
This is for you, M, not that you’ll see it…but I’ve told you before. It’s a quote from the Victorian writer Dinah Craik…
“But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely.
Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
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