Valentine's 13

I could do 13 reasons why I love my husband, but I have several entries about why I love him. Today I thought I'd celebrate my friends.

So, 13 reasons why I love my friends (not necessarily in order of importance)...

1. They enrich my life. They do this by making me think, my making me love, by making me care.

2. They make me laugh. Laughter is really the best way to spend an hour, I have to say. I love making my friends laugh, too. What can be better than bringing a little fun into someone's heart?

3. They hear me out. When you've got a problem or a worry, then it's friends to the rescue. Your husband can only listen to it so much, after all.

4. Who else would I eat lunch with?

5. They give me their honest opinions. Thankfully, if I am messing up big time, they care enough to tell me. When my friends say, "You'd better stop and think about that," I try to heed that as the warning it is.

6. They give good advice. From what doctor to see to what I should do about a specific incident, I can count on hearing good words from my friends.

7. They will sit with me when I cry. My friends will not leave me to drown in my own tears. Thankfully I don't have to ask them to pull me from the waters very often.

8. They make me feel needed. I am always happy to help out if a friend needs a hand. Usually I just listen or sit with them if they cry (which again does not happen very often). I think it is very necessary for someone to feel needed in a relationship, to feel like they're giving back. I mean, isn't that point?

9. They give good hugs. There are few things as warming as the hug of a good friend. Hugs are about the best things ever.

10. They are patient with me. I know I have whined about the same thing a thousand times. And every time they listen.

11. My friends don't need explanations. If I do something really stupid, they simply accept it for what it is, and we move on.

12. My friends honor me by letting me be their friend and granting me time in their lives. Their time for me is indeed a most valuable gift.

13. Here are some quotes about friendship:

Friendship make prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC), On Friendship, 44 B.C.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Soul of Man under Socialism (1881)

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Pudd'nhead Wilson

The only thing that lasts longer than a friend's love is the stupidity that keeps us from knowing any better.
Randy K. Milholland, Something Positive Comic, 09-07-06

Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.
Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)