Friendship

I tried to find the source of some pictures with quotes that my longtime friend, Cheryl, sent me in an email and found two more quotes that I really liked.

Friends are God’s ways of apologizing for our families.
~ Anonymous
I so agree with this one. We all know we can't choose our family. It is what it is, and sometimes the friends in our life are much closer to us than those we call family. Oftentimes we would prefer our friends to be our family. And many times I've witnessed where friends became the family that a person didn't have in their blood relatives.



It takes a long time to grow an old friend.
~ John Leonard

So true. My friend, Cheryl, has been in my life for all of my adult life. We became friends when I was still in my teens, and she was a young married mother about to give birth to twins. I'm not sure she really believed she was going to have twins. They didn't have ultra sounds in those days. But she did give birth to identical twin girls. I loved babies and was so excited to have a friend that had twins. I still remember going over to her house to help with them, and give them their baths in the sink. I often babysat them and their older sister while she and her husband went out for the evening.
It was kind of funny because I was dating the man who was to later become my first husband. He would call me up for a date and I would tell him I had already agreed to babysit the twins and Tina. He would offer to go with me and help me out, so our "dates" were going over to Cheryl's and babysitting! I don't know a lot of men who would have thought that was fun, but Michael loved it as much as I did. It sure did make taking care of them much easier.
Cheryl and I have been friends for over 41 years. We have seen each other through many things and while we may not agree on everything, we have both worked to maintain the friendship over time. We have had periods where we didn't see each other for long stretches. Things just got busy for us, or we lost touch by moving or circumstances changing. By chance we would run into each other again and start right back where we left off. Since then we have both been determined to make sure we don't lose touch again, and we make time for each other almost every week when we get together for breakfast. There's just nothing better than a good friend who has been through life with you.

I love you, Cheryl and hope we have many more years to come!

Here are the pictures that Cheryl sent in the email. I couldn't find any information to post about their source, but since they are going around the internet, through the emails, I think it will be alright to post them here. If anyone knows the source, I would gladly acknowledge the person who put the quotes and pictures together!
Enjoy!