COUNT THE FRIENDS you can count on

BY THE FLY ON THE WALL

I was at the airport,sending off a close friend who was leaving for a long posting abroad.
We had been friends since school and had maintained this close friendship ever since.
We had been there for each other through tough times-relationships gone bad,illness,deaths in the family,periods of unemployment.
We shared good times,too-graduation,weddings,children,new jobs and just general happy times.
"How many friends do you have?"he asked me suddenly.
"Oh I don't know...... we know a lot of people,"I replied.
We had always been popular and had never found it difficult to make new friends.
"No,I don't mean friends in the casual sense,I mean true friends,"he persisted.
Most of those we call "friends" are merely acquaintances,he explained,people whom we work with,people that we socialise with,not so much by choice but because of circumstances.
When we were in school,there were eight classes with about 40 pupils in each.
We used to see these 320 people every day for five years.We played together,we studied together,and we antagonised teachers together.
These were the people that we grew up with and who supposedly shaped our character.
"So where are all your schoolmates now?"he challenged me.
I realised that I didn't know where most of these 320 people were,and I had no idea even where to begin to look for them.
After my friends's flight had departed,I kept thinking about where all my school friends had disappeared to.
I met up with some other schoolmates later and posed the same question to them.
"Where have all our friends gone?What happened to Lim?Do you know where Rama ended up?What about Din?"
Although all of us remembered everybody we went to school with,no one knew where the majority had ended up.
And,for those of us who knew where Sam was,and how many kids he had,no one really kept in touch with him.Even more frightening was that no one seemed to care.
And that,I suppose,was the crux of the matter.We had all just grown apart.
So,my friend was right.These were'nt really friendships in the true sense.These were not people that I could go running to in the event I needed help.These were not people that I could trust my life with.They were people that I would fondly recall old stories with,but they were not true friends.
I will never forget the words of my friend that night at the airport.
"Everyone is only looking out for himself.....you are lucky if you can name one true friend - no matter where he or she may be.You are considered blessed if you can count your true friends on every finger of one hand."
To be blessed,I would have to be able to count five true friends.I still consider myself blessed that I could count ....three.