friendship – Quest Quilts

Empty bobbins are moments in life where we pause and reflect. It’s like when your bobbin runs out in the middle of a project, and you have to pause everything you’re doing to reload. Here’s one such reflective moment. This is a moment from a couple of weeks ago when my son went to soccer camp.

So my son, five, played one season of soccer a couple of years ago he liked it but seemed distracted. Most of the time he just ran around the back part of the group and blended in with the herd. After that we didn’t hear about soccer again until this past school year. Well during the week there was just too much going on, so we agreed that a week soccer camp, blessedly at an indoor facility, would be a good start to get back into the game.

Well he loved it. He was tired, sweaty, and pleased as punch. I was happy to see he was running and keeping up with the other kids. As he walked back to the car with me, he was telling me about his friend whom he’d pointed out earlier. I asked, “What was her name?” He thought, shrugged, and casually said, “I don’t know.” And then he went on telling me the games they played in camp and such. I laughed at the fact that he didn’t even know the name of his so-called “friend”.

Well a couple of days later, as we were walking back to the car again, he pointed at a couple of little boys and said, “those are my friends, too!” They rolled down the window and waved to him. Once more I asked, “Well, what are their names?” He looked off and muttered, “I don’t know.” It didn’t even phase him.

My first impulse was to laugh, but I stopped short because his face was serious as his thoughts were elsewhere. And here I realized the biggest difference between myself and my little boy’s outlook – and as a result the outlooks of children versus adults. He didn’t need to know their names to determine they were friends.

As adults, we often ask all about a person to determine how good of a friend that person will be. We need to know how much we have in common, make connections, and be able to see part of ourselves in that person in order to bond. But for my son and his friends, they didn’t need to know all that. They only needed to know that this person wanted to be a friend. So much so that they forgot to ask about the most basic information – a name. That simple bond made me smile and consider how we, as adults, would be better off if we could remember that same rule.

What if the fact that we wanted to be friends was enough of a basis for a friendship?

Makes you wonder.