that kind of friend.

13 Dec 2011 20 Comments

by mary kathryn tyson in being a woman in christ, family & friends who are family, life abundant., taking care of self & one another

harvest on the hill o4

many years ago, i told tiffany that she was teaching me how to be and have a friend. over ten years, a husband who i respect tremendously, four babies i adore, several miles plus the years of my crazy between us, she remains one of my best and most committed friends. our love for one another has not once wavered, even if our time together has.

when we first became friends, we would sneak into our “office”, which was more like a military bunker, and we would giggle and gossip about things we couldn’t say out loud at work.

she and i created the princess plan of physical perfection together. (it worked for me, too, let me tell you…)

she was the first friend i had who moved away, if only temporarily, and stayed in touch. we spoke almost, if not, every day while she lived in california.

market on the hill spring o4

she hostessed my going-away party when i left for new york. she was my first cheerleader going and then coming home, even when no one knew i had come back. we started a business together that spring and she squealed for my vision every morning as we woke up with new ideas.

about a year later, god made it clear it was time to sever the most important relationships in my life (outside of my family), three to be exact. (for the sake of brevity, i won’t get into the who and the what and the why.) i couldn’t even give words to it when i broke up with tiffany, and it happened awkwardly over lunch. it was incredibly painful for both of us.

that summer, i said ‘yes’ and then i said ‘no’ when she asked me to be in her wedding.

and then, in the fall, we went out for our birthday lunch as we had in previous years.

and do you know what that precious girl said to me? she said she understood why there had been space between us. that jesus and charles showed her why even when i couldn’t.

and in a moment, god wrapped our hearts around each other again and we reconciled.

it was too late then to be a bridesmaid in her wedding a month later, but i did get to sing for them and was a part of all of the festivities. no role in any wedding has meant more to me than that, when i would have been happy to have just received an invitation by then.

it was even after that when my brain took a sabbatical from my body and yet she remained loyal even when i couldn’t be open with her then about my crazy.

only she and i can know the cost of our friendship over so many years. tif is a friend of the truest kind, who empathizes in both joy and sorrow. she has been and is the friend i want standing next to me on the most beautiful and wretched of days, when i am my best and my worst. because i know she and our friendship can take it because we already have.

she is that kind of friend.

superbowl 2o1o

and then there’s karen and mel, or k-cobb and mel-p as i like to call them. (actually, mel, i’ve never called you that before, but i’m going to start now, okay?) karen & mel are my heart’s dearest and truest friends here in the town where i live.

we only met two-ish years ago. i know this because i remember karen started showing up to our bible study around the time that my dad died.

we laugh now because, for a while, i thought she was too clean to be friends with me. i thought i was too colorful for her. and…that’s all i’ll say about that. (i’m not saying but i’m saying.)

i remember my first conversation with her as we stood in leslie’s living room. rather, i don’t remember what we talked about but i remember what she was wearing and that we hugged for a long time and it was precious, even though i still thought she would be too conservative for the likes of me.

no, caroline, i'm not speaking today.

we prayed into being her baby who i love as if he is my own child. 

you have heard me call her and her husband my co-spouses. when we talk about ben getting a job after he achieves his mba (this week!), we talk about where we’re all going to move together and what color to paint my room.

and then one day i ended up with her and ben at mel’s house to “watch the superbowl” and it was all over after that. we were bff’s from that moment on. (their husbands were roommates in college so they were friends long before me. in fact, mel had also been roommates in college with one of my oldest family friends.)

they are the kind of friends who do what they say they’re going to do when they say they’re going to do it, no matter what. they are fiercely loyal, without question.

like tif, they teach me how to be and have friends.

for my birthday this year, karen invited our besties around her fire-pit where we made s’mores and told stories and laughed hysterically and i cried because there, they each shared stories of my friendship with them. they reminded me why anyone has friends at all. 

out on a pass.

there was one particularly difficult weekend in the fall when i was on big myra-duty. i had a brief respite that saturday morning after not sleeping at all for two nights and i. was. so. exhausted. like, the crying, can’t-make-sense-of-anything-at-all kind of exhausted. they found me unnerved at our church yard sale and despite my most polite southern efforts to insist they not come, they left their families to show up at bedtime, made a pallet in the living room and helped me throughout the night – to the point i had to just sleep and let them take over. some of my favorite memories of my life were made with them that night.

yesterday, karen said she wants to have an mk-revival at the beach around the first of the year. i asked her if she meant she wants me to preach or if she means to bring me back to life, which the latter would make more sense than the first anymore.

they are that kind of friend.

the kind of friend i hope i am, the kind i want to be.

that i would ever have that kind of friend? i couldn’t ask for more than the gift of each of these women in my life. i am stronger, softer and more beautiful because of them. my friends are the reason my heart beats and i haven’t even gotten around to telling you yet about amy, leigh & het, kim, catherine, jenny, annya, the other girls who sat around karen’s bonfire, the chapel hill social club or why kel is the reason i am funny, if ever i am funny at all. there will definitely be a part two post. and a part three.

for now, for today, i honor these three women in my life, and the jesus who shines so purely through them.

tif, karen & mel, thank you for the gift of…you. for living so completely, totally and honestly into who god has created you to be. for showing up, for laughing and crying…and laughing til we cry, for just being present.

my life is richer, fuller, and certainly more fun, because of you.

do you have that kind of friend?

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