What sparked the whole thought process was when I had caught up with a really close friend of mine online one night and we chatted for a bit and then she got the brilliant idea of chatting in person on the phone. That whole occurrence is a rather rare one in my world. I am quite capable of picking up the phone and calling any of my friends as they are of picking up the phone and calling me. The reality is that we don't as often as we should and that's okay. It's nice to have friends far away whom I can call and chat with and listen to the cadence of their mild Southern drawl. It would be far better if I had friends here that I could call on and hang out with and share life with. Not for lack of trying but more for lack of hitting my head up against a brick wall. One thing I have learned in my short years on this planet is you can't make someone be your friend that doesn't want to be your friend. It could be any number of reasons but I have discovered that most of the time the root issue is selfishness. I have been on the "I don't really want to befriend you" side of the equation too and that was my motivation. Pure selfishness.
So if your people friends are few, who else will be your friend? Enter the fluffy and furry varieties of friends. We adopted our first cat just a week or so before Jeff started back on the road with the company he is currently driving for. Seamus (pronounced "Shay-mus") has been a joy to have around and has provided endless hours of entertainment. As with a person-friend, it took some time to get to know him; his quirks (he doesn't like salmon), his cutenesses (his favorite way to lie on the floor is splayed out on his back with his feet curled at the toes), and his annoying habits (beating around in his litter box for far longer than necessary seemingly trying to find that infamous route to China). Seamus has been a very loyal furry friend but he is just a cat. He adds an element to life that is different from the people friendships. Funny thing, the relationship is different for him. He was becoming lonely, even though I'm his people friend. He didn't have another furry friend to play with. It was heart-wrenching to listen to him sitting in the window on a balmy summer's night meowing his heart out to the stray and neighbor cats, yearning for the attention and affection from another cat. In December, we adopted our second cat, Katie. She has turned out to be the perfect match and addition to our little furry family. She is a very nurturing girl and loves to gives kisses in the form of licks and rubbing noses. She and Seamus, though the initial meeting was hostile, have grown to love each other as friends and they play quite happily together and are quite content to sit next to each other and wait for me to walk through the door at the end of my work day. Now I wonder what Seamus meows about when he sits up in the window. Maybe he's telling the other cats tales of his new playmate. ;0)
Our furry friends have been more constant companions for me since they live in our apartment and I am here the most. Jeff relies on the fluffy variety of friend for most of his companionship. If you have seen the movie Castaway, the character of Wilson will give you a better understanding of Jeff's life on the road. Wilson is a volleyball that Tom Hanks' character finds while he's stranded on his remote island. This volleyball, an inanimate object, becomes a very real friend for him and when he loses Wilson while making his final escape attempt, we are witness to his mourning over the loss of his "friend". Your initial reaction might be, "that's just crazy!" or "only children keep toys around and call them friends". Maybe so but if it helps you get through the tougher times in life, how crazy can it really be? Think how different that movie would have been without the character of Wilson. Dare I say it would have been rather boring. In Jeff's case, he has created personalities for his stuffed toys; a fat little sheep named Gouda and my old monkey hand puppet from when I was a child, named Mutebi, 'Tebi for short. The personalities and adventures he has created for them help him deal with the endless hours of solitude while on the road are the stuff kid's books are made of. Don't get me wrong, he loves driving a truck but he is a type A personality and he thrives on social activity to stimulate and revive him. When he can't get that in the form of people, he creates it for his fluffy friends. Imagination is so underrated these days.
I'm not trying to make an argument in favour of being able to survive in this world without people friends, not at all. I am very much a believer that we were created to be part of a community of believers and have other people around to be friends to and to receive friendship from. But in the absence of the people variety of friends, I believe God allows us to befriend the furry variety and the fluffy variety to broaden our circle of friends.
