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On the left below is an editorial I retrieved from a college newspaper. On the right is what my edit of that same editorial would be.
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LESSONS IN LIFE WORTH LEARNING
If I knew then what I know now, I'd remember that it takes only one phone call or e-mail to make someone feel loved or remembered.
I remember reading a story in "Chicken Soup For the Teenage Soul," in which a girl (we'll call her Sara) related a story about her friend, who would have committed suicide if she had not received a phone call from her friend, Sara.
Sara had just been calling her friend to say "hi," but it had made all the difference to her friend, who might have killed herself if she had not realized how much her friend cares about her.
There's an old saying that goes: Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other's gold. It may seem like just a sappy Girl Scout song, but it is truer than people may think.
When I came to college, I lost touch with my four best friends from home. One of them had moved to Ohio after our sophomore year in high school, but the five of us had still remained close.
I came to college, and though I e-mail them pretty frequently, I seem to have grown apart from them (although I have not told them this). I made new friends at college, and when I go home for breaks, my friends from home and I are too busy (or think we're too busy) to visit with each other. I will see any one of them, at the most, four times a year.
It did not occur to me, until just recently, however, how much they really do mean to me, even if we don't have a lot in common anymore.
Last week I received an e-mail from one of them saying that she had thought about killing herself. She had cut her wrists, and although I don't think that she had been trying to kill herself-I think that she just wanted to hurt herself-it still scared all of us (she had sent the e-mail to all of us asking for our help).
I returned her e-mail immediately telling her not to give up and to remember that we all love her. The other friends also replied and phoned her to say the same.
Now she is doing alright, but the incident left me feeling incredibly guilty.
I have known some of these girls since the second grade, and I have been friends with them since at least the fifth grade. Yet until this past week, I had convinced myself that I don't need them, and that they don't need me.
If I had known then, that our childhood friendships would have turned out to be stronger than the best of adult relationships, I would have made a greater effort to keep in touch, and I would have tried to remember why we became friends in the first place.
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A GRAIN OF TRUTH
Certain quotations become maxims because they contain a grain of universal truth. "Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other is gold," is one of these. The universal truth it proclaims is that friends, especially long-time friends, are to be cherished as treasures.
Why is being cherished important? A recent experience proved to me that for us humans it sometimes might mean the difference between life and death.
When I began college, I unwittingly neglected to provide adequate space in this new chapter of my life for my four best friends of earlier chapters. After all, we were now traveling different paths and making new friends along the way. Although we e-mailed each other on a fairly regular basis, when I was home for breaks, we were frequently "too busy" to visit together. We seemed to be growing apart.
Last week four of us received an e-mail from our fifth friend saying that she had thought about killing herself; she had even gone so far as to cut her wrists. Instinctively, we all phoned her immediately to let her know how much we love her and how much her friendship means to us.
She was overwhelmed. Evidently that simple act of personal contact and reassurance was something she desperately needed. It reminded her how much she was loved and treasured by others simply because of the joy she brought to their lives. She's doing all right now, but the incident left me feeling incredibly guilty.
Analyzing this guilt led me to a deeper understanding of the word "cherish." It is an action, not just a feeling. It means "to treat affectionately." Then I suddenly remembered why we all had become friends in the first place. It was because we said and did things that made each other feel loved, valued, and special.
My e-mails to these four friends will be different now. As well as sharing my college life experiences, I will make sure they always know that among the treasures I have fortunately acquired in my life, their friendship, begun back in the fifth grade, is still as precious to me as gold.
I am eagerly looking forward to seeing them next break. We do still need each other!
SEE EDITING NOTES BELOW.
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Editing for this piece involved what I described on page two of this Web site as a substantive revision. It included:
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This website and content were designed and constructed by Fritz P. Sherrick, Ph.D.
©Copyright, 2002. All rights reserved.
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