We left before the sun came up and got home after it had slipped behind the mountains.

Fifteen hours for one menopausal mama and one introverted farm dog -both of whom who would probably prefer to spend the remainder of their days never leaving the farm- well, it’s a trek, and a really big deal, and an hour into the drive of our long day when he started breathing funny, I near turned my rig around to bring us both and back to the ranch.

Maybe it was a mistake loading him up and asking him to ride in the middle row of my rig for four hours one way through the mountains.

I’d laid out his special blanket across the seats, and my daughter had conveniently left a large wad of hay in the cargo area from the night before when she’d borrowed Mom’s SUV to haul her ram to a hot date with his new girlfriends.

Even surrounded by familiar smells of home, when his gums and tongue turned ashy, and his brown eyes searched mine questioningly as his breaths from the sweet, big white head propped tiredly on the backside of the passenger seat became short and shallow, I doubted my decision to take him to the big city docs and wondered through streaming tears what exactly my plan was should he die in my backseat while I traveled the empty, dark, mountainous, two-lane highway.

He pepped up when we stopped at the last gas station, and he peed long when I let him walk in the grass, and the two of us bravely navigated the big city and all its noises and loud cars right as the sun crested the mountain tops.

The sweet and precious vet with eyes that smiled at him and cried with me was an answer to the prayer i had hoping for a compassionate person who was knowledgeable and found quick and definitive answers to what was ailing our sweet boy.

She gave him tests and then she told me what I already knew:

His heart is too big.

This dog, this wonderful and beautiful gentle-hearted servant who loves me with every ounce of him, trusting me unflinchingly even after the confusion of being left at the shelter by the family he first served, even with all of his quirky insecurities and fears of the ceiling fan, and wayward balloons, and tall boys with long hair that carry guns…his heart is huge and he loves this farm and this family steady and there is no where he’d rather be than resting his soft head gently on the knee of one of his people or curled up in the cool of mom’s corner bathroom closet where he can nap and watch his people through his dozing.

Physically, his heart is not constricting properly, causing it to expand in volume and stay enlarged, quivering around in his barrel chest trying to do what hearts do, stay in rhythm.

Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) affects specific breeds as well as large and giant breeds of dogs. Had we known prior to him being symptomatic, there is a fairly positive prognosis that dogs can be treated and live years. That he was symptomatic though means he is in congestive heart failure, and the only treatment method is to keep the fluid off his heart and lungs, and medicate the heart in the hopes to help it work more efficiently.

So here we are again, our fifth dog in the thirty years of our life together that we will be loving on up to the end of their life, giving them the good love of a family as we keep our canine comfortable and cared for.

I’ve chosen a spot on the barnyard where I’ll have the fellas dig his grave before it gets too cold, and we’ve got a whole new medication routine to incorporate into his daily life. The wild salmon from my wild boy is keeping him eating each day, and now that we know exactly what is happening inside of him, we know what to watch for and how best to care for him.

Our sweet new veterinarian friend gave him a mild sedative for his long trip home, and after two hours into our return trek, he finally laid down and closed his eyes for some rest, knowing somehow that we were going back to the farm.

On our big adventure he visited a dog park at the vet’s office; he saw one of his favorite girls in the big city for a quick pit stop, he got to pee in the same grass twice at a busy gas station, and he met some of the most top notch professionals who gave us some solid answers and who are helping us to stay in rhythm with him while we do the same for his heart.

It wasn’t the best news we could have hoped for, but as I came home last night I thanked the LORD for letting me bring my dog home: Back then, those four years ago when we were called about this weird, strange breed at the shelter -the same breed I had been researching all winter the year our Annie died- this huge white dog who needed a new farm to guard; and then again yesterday, after the long trip up took so much of him and left me doubting myself and my decision to take him.

Just like I knew the minute I met him at the shelter that I was making the right decision to bring him home, I knew yesterday as we snaked back through the mountains with the sun casting a golden glow on each hillside that I had made the right choice to seek out answers, and I am so thankful to have some.

This is easier than cancer in some ways – the mass that was showing on the x-rays was actually fluid buildup, and while fluid is easy to take off, the outcome to both is the same.

We will one day soon have to say goodbye to our big white servant.

We will nurse him and love him and help him stay in rhythm, and one day soon we will lay him to rest here on the farm he so loves.

But until then, we will give him everything we can for him to fight each day, and we will love him.

Him and his big heart.

I woke up this morning at 4 a.m. to a strange bark and when I got up and looked out the window, I saw his large ghostly white shape sitting between the stand pipes of the septic field, just sitting there tall and looking at the house as if he’d made it halfway down to check the pen where his old friend Sean the pig used to live, but decided to give up on his way down, instead turning around to sit a spell and see if the boss was up.

He’s my first LGD (Livestock Guardian Dog), and he came to our farm in a way that could’ve only been orchestrated from Heaven, and he is soft and sweet like a favorite childhood stuffie, and trembly and handsome and noble like Oz’s Cowardly Lion, and he loves Mom like I birthed him myself, and he is gentle enough to take to the nursing home after getting his Canine Good Citizen certification with the rest of Mom’s 4-H kids’ dogs, and all the while barking like a locomotive train at any sign or scent of danger to our farm in the middle of the night.

I called to him through the screen and the tall white shape just sat there, still and alert, watching the house. There was such a stillness and quiet, I wondered if the dark of the morning had my eyes tricking me and that maybe I was just seeing an extra tall standpipe I’d never noticed before, or one of my daughter’s devil geese.

I put my glasses on, and sure enough, it was my good old boy, sitting there with his noble body facing the house, staring straight at the bedroom window side of the house, on alert and just watching.

I plodded to the back door to let him in, looking down through the cracks of the back porch, still thinking I’d been mistaken and that he would come scooting out of his cool hidey hole under the steps.

I heard the Great Horned Owl hooting from his tree when I opened the door…that shyster that Levi named Owen way back last spring -hey, where have you been, old owl? We haven’t heard hide nor hair from you all summer long…and I called out to Woodrow, -maybe that really wasn’t him in the bedroom window?- and I still expected he’d come wiggling out of his favorite hiding spot there under the porch and bound up the steps as always, happy to get back to his favorite place, on the cool floor right next to Mom’s side of the bed.

He wasn’t under the porch, so that was definitely him staring at our windows, and after a couple calls, he came sauntering around the side of the house, and his normal leap was instead a quiet and determined trek up the steps, and he followed me across the house back to our room, leaving me to wonder what it was on the barnyard that had him staring so serenely at the windows through which his favorite people slumbered.

Last week it was just a pesky grass seed lodged in his throat when I took him in because of some discomfort in his breathing -it happens often this time of year I learned- but he’s been quietly telling us since then that there is something inside of him that just isn’t right.

He’s been staring at me all week, and instead of his normal big white head-flop into our laps, he’s taken to quietly standing beside me, looking intently into my eyes when I ask if he’s okay…

And why is it that the older we get, the more we live on the brink of just a breath away from saying goodbye?

Our precious vet team welcomed him in this morning, assuring me they’d squeeze him in between appointments to do some investigating into my concerns that “something is just off.”

After dropping him off, I hadn’t made it fifteen minutes up the road before Woodrow’s sweet doctor called and said she is not sure how he is still standing or still breathing.

The mass on his lungs has taken up three-quarters of his chest capacity, so big in fact, that his actual lungs were barely visible on the x-ray, and his heart was nowhere to be seen.

Euthanasia was the most likely and immediate treatment plan, and I took a few minutes to get my air, make the needed calls, and head back to pick him up.

How do we say goodbye to our best friend?

How do we let go a creature who is so part of our team…so part of our farm…so part of our family…so part of our hearts?

I drove back to the vet’s office and they all came to mind….Bo the police puppy…Annie, all shot up in the woods and carrying the world’s most-loved litter of pups…our other Beau, the big one, standing on his strong little legs for his girl every single day of his colic and not laying his sweet little big noble body down until it was time for him to leave this earth….Daisy, all swollen and sore and peacefully slipping away when we loaded her up and told her she was going home…Charlotte, surprising us with an unknown ailment that put her down in the mud so quickly we had barely enough time to haul her up and bring her to warmth before she left us…Todd and Opie, precious friends of our family who’d suffered all the loss all at one time…all the little critters my children have loved and that my husband has mercifully sent into eternity…

And now my Woodrow.

My big boy, my sweet boy, the one we brought home to guard the farm, but the one who instead decided he’d guard me.

My white floof of a giant who was destined to be penned next to the livestock while we took the hands-off approach so many LGD owners swear by before I found the folks who know the real way, the best way…the sister-family who taught me how to show him the love of a family and that in doing so, he would come to protect those who loved him and all that is precious to them.

How many will we say goodbye to over the course of a lifetime?

How is a dog so stoic and strong that a basketball grows in his chest and he never once whimpers?

How is it fair that their lives are so much shorter than ours that we know them for a fraction of our lifespan, just enough time to fall in love and develop a friendship like no other, and just in time to see the life of love slip from their brave and knowing eyes?

I brought him home today, and after his x-ray, our loving vet let him wander the office, gentlemanly and quiet, only showing signs of stress when my truck pulled back into the parking lot to retrieve him and he put his head through the screen on their window trying to get to me.

She saw his stoicism, and maybe she just saw my love for him, but it was more than likely her love for all creatures great and small that prompted her to recommend we just let him fight.

Because don’t all of God’s creatures deserve that?

“Let’s throw everything at him and pray I’m wrong.”

That’s what she said and isn’t that what we do?

I tell my kids that every single time…so many times when you’re a farmer and a lover of animals…

“We’ll do every single thing we can to give them a chance to fight for life.”

And then when the fight is done, they’ll let us know.

So I gathered up the meds she prescribed, and when a dog is of a size that they need to call one of his scripts into the local pharmacy, did you know that you can get your animal’s prescription right there at the little counter where you pick up your thyroid medication each month?

And a farmer will do what a farmer does, and if it takes too long to get the medication, she’ll just pull some of those meds from the family medicine cabinet.

Now both of the sweet old men I live with take the same medication, one just a bit more than the other, and my Reluctant Farmer doesn’t mind sharing his until the pharmacy can fill the script for Woodrow Rankin, K-9.

It was two years to the day those same two old men lounged, one sick on the brink of death, waiting for test results to tell us what was taking the life out of him, the other, a constant presence by his side, comforting…being comforted from the confusion of seeing his boss man down.

Two old fragile vessels, not china cups or a delicate piece like the Bible speaks of when we read “weaker vessel”, but tough old oaken whiskey barrels, bound by steel and strength and years of care and stoicism and oil, and all the years of love and care and time and the best of a family’s flavor.

So many times he’s walked by our side, or walked in front of us to protect us from what his thousands of years of guardian instincts tell him is a danger to his people: the screaming sow he stood in front of while my wee babe Levi walked by her pen…the cat today with paralyzed back legs that scooted herself across the floor to come say hi just to hiss at him when he got in the way of me petting her…the raven he’s growled at as she flew too closely to the geese who hate him…the countless black bear, moose, and coyote he’s prevented from coming onto our property by laying down a scent perimeter around the precious five acres that he has claimed as his people’s…

So many times.

He’s loved us, and in doing so, he’s protected us.

I didn’t know before I had an LGD what it meant to own an LGD.

I didn’t know that in letting him in to love US, that he would BECOME us.

I didn’t know that when he became us, he would become my best friend.

I’ve never talked to a dog like I’ve talked to a full grown adult.

My kids tease him about being a baby, about being a coward.

“He’s Mom’s favorite”, they joke.

“He’s such a baby”, they tease when he flops his head down on Dad’s knee, craving for the head rubs we all endlessly give him.

“He’s a chicken”, they say when he shies from the coyote standing in the yard after he’s alerted us to it and the gun comes out.

“He’s a scaredy cat”, they say when he cowers from the ceiling fan sixteen feet up as he scurries across the living room.

And the thing is, he is a baby.

He is a chicken.

He is a scaredy cat.

And while ALL of my babies are my favorite, he very well could be my favorite dog.

Because he loves us just as fiercely as I love him.

He might be my cowardly lion, but we don’t have predators on our farm.

Since Woodrow came to us that spring day four years ago, we haven’t lost an animal to predation, and while his favorite hidey hole is under the porch or in my cool closet, we don’t suffer from the threat of bears, or moose, or coyote, or eagles, or paralyzed cats or anything else that would harm his boss or the things that are important to her, whether it be animal or land or child or husband.

Today I visited a pot shop for the first time in my life, and I’ve added CBD to the regime of medication his precious and matchless medical team have given him.

We’ll put on hands on his body every moment we get and we’ll pray to the Father who gave him to us that the medication and the herbs will work to give us more time with the majestic creature He’s blessed us with.

We are thankful.

We love him so. I think as much as he loves us, although he loves us so strong, as only a good dog can.

We will try to show him we love him the same, and we’ll do it for as long as we have him.

As I took the morning to process what my Woodrow’s diagnosis means for him, for our family, I am mourning the fact that his 11-14 year expected lifespan has been cut dramatically short.

I am processing the loss of the people -and the animals- we’ve lost since bringing him onto our farm.

The loss my friends have suffered…jobs, animals, homes, family…

We get older and we’re not ready, and today I’m just not ready.

I’m thankful for the gift of life…the gift of love…

but I’m just not ready to let him go.

I’m not ready.

For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are mine. Psalm 50:10-11

To the fella in the nice blue Chevy pickup with the two kayaks on the roof… yes, you, gentleman who was so angry with me this morning when I waited a bit too long to turn there at the corner by the car wash…

I owe you an apology.

You might owe me one too, I’ll let you decide, but I wanted to take a minute and tell you I’m sorry for pausing to wait for that one extra car to go by.

I could’ve made the turn, heck, as you know, I could’ve probably made the turn three times over in those five extra seconds that you and I sat there in the left-hand turn lane.

I thought about just going on ahead and turning -even started to pivot my ankle a bit toward the accelerator, but then I didn’t.

Probably on any other day I would have, or if we lived in a different place, you wouldn’t have had to wonder in frustration what the slowpoke lady with big sunglasses in the silver Yukon was doing. If we lived in a fast paced city, or if it was any other day, I probably would have just zoomed on around the corner without that pause.

But because of where we live…and because of it being today…I didn’t.

I just sat there for that extra second because truth be known, I just wan’t ready.

I wasn’t ready.

I wasn’t ready to make the turn, but if we’re being honest here, I could go back to early this morning when my husband suggested maybe I drive us to town today.

I wasn’t ready for that.

See, my man has been driving his princess around this world for on about thirty years now, and we’ve ridden in many chariots (our first being a blue pickup too, and while I will admit yours is nice, his holds a pretty special place in my heart, that big old beefy Ford he used to have to sometimes help me up into, especially when I wore that little jean mini skirt he liked to see his darlin wear).

There’s been a constant stream of old Fords since, and a whole bunch of SUVs to haul all these kids all these years, and then a steady stream of teenagers with their big feet on the gas pedal, and he’s taught them to drive those same vehicles too…but I’ve been his shotgun rider in all those rigs for all these years and we hold hands over the console and he wraps his big muscly paw around my littler one and he keeps me warm in the quiet.

But my man’s been pretty sick, and today he had a pretty important medical appointment, and the big muscles he used to use to help heft me and hold me are now being used solely to keep his shrinking frame upright…but we still held hands across the console, it’s just me keeping him warm now, his big paw getting smaller, but still much bigger than mine, so my fingers just wrap around his fist and that seems to be just fine with him.

So I drove today.

I wasn’t ready for that.

And while we’re talking about princesses, let’s talk about this one not being ready to pump her own gas on our way to town.

I’m not sure if that’s what I was thinking about there in that moment you and I shared in the turn lane, but it was on my mind quite a bit this morning.

How for the past thirty years my man has taken such good care of this woman, it’s been a rarity for me to ever pump gas.

I thought of how he always taught our boys that a gentleman carries heavy stuff and opens doors and pumps the gas for his lady…so with a house full of teens, how spoiled am I that I have almost forgotten what to do at the gas pump?

I pumped the gas today and I wasn’t ready for that.

I made a joke about how I’ve had that silver Yukon over a year now, the nicest vehicle I’ve ever owned, a limo to me really…my man drove himself to work and back every day for years in a beat up little Ford Ranger until it died just so his woman and kids could have a nice ride, a safe ride…and here just now today I didn’t know how to open the little door to put the gas in.

I laughed about it and made him smile, but deep down I was sad, because I wasn’t ready for him to not be pumping my gas.

I wasn’t ready.

I know you were upset. I knew I had kept you waiting, made you sit that extra five seconds there with me…that’s why I looked at you apologetically in my mirror.

I saw you shaking your head and raising your arms at me. I know what you were thinking, I’ve thought the same thing a thousand times in my decades of driving alongside people who have momentary lapses like I did this morning.

That is why I gave you a thumbs up. I was letting you know that yeah, I’m okay, I just spaced it for a second but I’ll move my ass along here as soon as this next batch of cars goes by.

I felt bad, hoping you weren’t on your way to work.

I saw your peppered gray beard and I felt like we knew each other for a second there, because there right next to me was another peppered-grey handsome fella, and how funny is it that he gets grumpy too with other drivers sometimes, and he’ll grumble at them, even as he’s forgotten to click on his blinker, or when he’s tailgating in a way that he knows drives me crazy.

You’ll like to know that right after I finally turned, he grumbled at me too when I drove like a dingbat into the car wash. He didn’t know it was because my eyes were a bit blurry and watery, and that the car wash was really just a diversion to postpone us from going to the next appointment and finding out what it was that they’d found inside him.

Because I wasn’t ready for that either.

I hope you don’t think I’m mad at you, becuase I promise I’m not. And this isn’t one of those snarky, sounds-nice-but-is-really-a-low-key-bitchy-post-to-prove-a-point post. I promise.

Because all we have to do right now is take one look at this world around us…those 13 gone forever…our nation crumbling…this virus run rampant…our people divided…and it could all just take us out at the knees.

We don’t need more negativity.

So when I saw that you were getting more and more frustrated with me, that’s when I blew you a kiss.

I know, crazy right?

I’m betting you had to share with your wife or your co-workers about the crazy lady blowing you kisses out her side mirror this morning, but hear me out.

One time a long time ago, I was at the post office and found myself in this weird stand off while I sat in my vehicle waiting to cross the little road. Along came a vehicle driven by a man who thought I was going to go the wrong way on a one-way alley way.

I wasn’t, but he didn’t know that, so we had about five seconds of waiting together, staring at each other, just like you and I did this morning.

He sat in his car and gestured at me.

I sat in mine and gestured at him.

I cocked my head in wonder.

He waved.

I shook my head in disbelief.

And then he blew me a kiss.

And I laughed and laughed.

I have never forgotten that silly little exchange because in that moment, me laughing, and then him laughing, and then both of us waving…our humanity connected.

I promise I wasn’t giving you the bird this morning.

I was blowing you a kiss.

I was, in that moment maybe somehow just trying to connect our humanity? I don’t know, it sounds so crazy you know, but it was just a reflex and a weird little action that bundled up all my fears and all my doubts and all my sadness and all my needing just a moment to find my feet up under me and take the next step…

I just wasn’t ready to turn yet.

I wasn’t ready.

I wasn’t ready to drive my man around, I wasn’t ready to pump my own gas, I wasn’t ready for the oncology appointment we were making our way towards.

So I paused a second.

I wish you would have waved and smiled at me.

I know, I know…crazy lady what are you even *talking* about?

I would have probably done exactly what you did; zoom around and let the slowpoke driver know that you had WAY too much to do today to be held up waiting for one more car.

I wish you hadn’t done that though.

I don’t want you to get hurt.

I don’t want your princess to be without you.

I don’t want her to have to pump her own gas.

I don’t want your big strong body to not be able to drive.

And if I were writing to make a point, I guess the only point would be is that…

sometimes a gal just isn’t ready.

Oh, I WILL be.

I know where I’m heading.

And I know where my fella is going to be too.

But when the preacher asked us all last Sunday Are you ready?, I had to sit there a second, my arm around my baby, my man back home resting, I had to just think about that.

Aren’t we always supposed to live as if we are ready to go Home?

The Bible tells us to have oil in our lamps and be ready to go any second.

Heck, even the inspirational signs at Walmart tell us to live every day like it’s our last.

But sometimes a little bump in our trail will make us doubt how well prepared we are for the trip ahead.

Sometimes one of our neighbors might be in a struggle they aren’t quite ready to talk about just yet but could still maybe use a smile and a neighborly wave as we drive by their house.

Sometimes the weight of a whole world, and the sorrow of all those parents can lay heavy on a heart and leave the senses a little raw with sadness, and the clerk at the grocery store could maybe use a nice word when the cash register makes us wait a while.

Sometimes a mama might just be a little dull in the reflexes and doubting herself and her ability to navigate traffic and the road ahead so she might just stand there a second too long.

I’m okay with you being mad at me, heck, I’d probably be mad at me too.

But I wish our humanity could have connected instead.

Because then you would’ve understood…

While most days I’m confident and decisive…quick and zippy those times I do drive…

This morning I just had a moment when the bump in the trail made me doubt my ability to walk the road ahead.

I’m so sorry that I held you up.

I hope you’ll read this and know that the lady blowing you a kiss really wasn’t crazy.

I just wasn’t ready.

Psalm 121

^1-2 I look up to the mountains;
    does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God,
    who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

^3-4 He won’t let you stumble,
    your Guardian God won’t fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel’s
    Guardian will never doze or sleep.

^5-6 God’s your Guardian,
    right at your side to protect you—
Shielding you from sunstroke,
    sheltering you from moonstroke.

^7-8 God guards you from every evil,
    he guards your very life.
He guards you when you leave and when you return,
    he guards you now, he guards you always.

In the 70s and 80s, a friend was someone who walked home with you from school, someone who came to your slumber parties, a partner with whom you grew up. A friend was someone who knew exactly who you had a crush on, knew what your first name sounded like matched up with the last name of every cute boy in class, knew your favorite colors, and was someone that dressed the same as you during Spirit Week.

Friendship is a state of enduring affection, esteem, intimacy, and trust between two people. In all cultures, friendships are important relationships throughout a person’s life span(Encyclopedia Britannica).

Dictionary.com defines friendship as

1 the state of being a friend; association as friends.

2 a friendly relation or intimacy.

3 friendly feeling or disposition.

If we fast forward to friendship in the 21^st century, we are forced to look at a very different definition and are left uncertain as to the actual meaning of the word. The widespread onset of Facebook in 2006 began the process of redefining friendship. Whereas a friend once meant someone actually close in relation or intimacy, “friend” somehow changed from a noun into a verb, and with that change, so changed the definition –and authenticity- of friend. “Facebook has turned the word “friend” into a verb, but just because you’ve friended someone on Facebook does that make them your friend in real life? Not according to a study that found almost all Facebook friends are entirely fake.” (Cuthbertson).

If the definition of friendship was changing in 2006, it was completely turned on its nose by 2020. In 2020, our world was turned upside down with the worldwide shutdown from the onset of the Covid-19 virus, followed by the death of George Floyd and the ensuing riots nationwide, and then hitting the apex of chaos during the controversial and contested election for the president of the United States of America.

Having a social media account in the 21^st century, and especially after the year 2020, invariably means that at some point, you will be “unfriended”.

What does it mean to be unfriended?

Is it ethical to unfriend someone on social media and still consider them a friend in life?

What is the purpose of unfriending someone on social media?

These are all questions consumers of social media are faced with more and more in this day and age, and issues one should take some time to consider as they maintain relationships online and in person. Social media has brought people so much closer, yet many times, causes vast chasms as the face-to-face aspect of friendships is more and more replaced by relationship maintenance in the way of likes and an occasional comment on a post or picture.

I have always utilized my social media accounts to maintain living, breathing relationships of both family and friendships. I’ve never been in the habit of friending random folks I meet at the grocery store, or co-workers I do not share an affinity for. People I “friend” are people with whom I share things in common, or who share a connection with me, my past, or my family. I have fully realized that some utilize their social media accounts with a sense of frivolity and casualness, but that has not been the way I have chosen to use my Facebook or Instagram accounts. I don’t hold it against anyone on my friends’ list for utilizing their friends’ list in different ways than I, but it has always been my standard to keep people on my friends list who are close to me or my family, or who have a relationship with me that is somehow meaningful.

Some of my closest friends and I have been able to maintain friendships on Facebook when we would not otherwise be able to get together in person, or even to have time for phone calls. Our family out of state has been able to be part of our children growing up here in Alaska while none of us has been able to travel often to see one another. I have been able to reconnect with old friends from childhood I may have otherwise just never been able to speak with again, all because of social media and the reach and connection it provides to those of us who utilize it.

During the year 2020, when all of America was in turmoil, -the whole world really- it became evident on social media that the circumstances surrounding us all were beginning to cause division among people, even the closest of friends. Political differences, opinions about masking, vaccinations, the election, the riots, BLM…these were topics, and continue to be, that put the fabric of friendships to the test, sometimes even to the point of unraveling.

Imagine the surprise this past year to have lost friends on Facebook.

Imagine the knowledge of having photos of our everyday farm life being reported by someone on our friends list for being graphic.

Imagine the division in a relationship to have someone you’ve known and been friends with for thirty years all of a sudden not show up on your list of friends one day.

Imagine the doubt that creeps around the corners to have older people from church who’ve once mentored you just be gone from your life online with no explanation or word.

Imagine the shock to have a friend from elementary school publicly proclaim on your social media page that you and your friends are ignorant and not worthy of your opinions being heard so she has decided to block you.

Imagine the conflict of it all.

The handful of folks who unfriended me were not just merely taking a break from Facebook like so many of us did this past year. They were not just making the size of their circle smaller while the world around us was so uncertain.

No, the folks that unfriended me were in direct opposition to things that I believe, the items and information I shared, and the way I utilize my social media account.

I was unfriended for my political stance.

I was unfriended for my religious beliefs.

I was unfriended because I utilize my social media account much like I would an open house where friends are present, sharing an open air exchange of respectful and civilized conversation, opinions, laughter, quips, and deep thoughts.

I was unfriended for how I think.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, friendship is generally characterized by five defining features:

1. It is a dyadic relationship… it involves a series of interactions between two individuals known to each other.

2. It is recognized by both members of the relationship…characterized by a bond or tie of reciprocated affection.

3. It is not obligatory; two individuals choose to form a friendship with each other…

4. It is typically egalitarian in nature…each individual in a friendship has about the same amount of power or authority in the relationship.

5. It is almost always characterized by companionship and shared activities…one of the primary goals and motivations of friendship is companionship…friendships often perform other functions…emotional support and providing opportunities for self-disclosure and intimacy.

Being unfriended on social media caused me to take a step back and evaluate the friendships I’ve formed over the course of my life and to really consider what it means to be a friend.  What did my friendships look like in the 70s, 80s, and 90s versus today? What did it look like then to be unfriended? How is that different than what it looks like to be unfriended in 2020?

This question forces us to ponder how much the definition of friendship has changed between then and now. And if we take that question one farther, we could even ask if in today’s day and age, do we rearrange our definitions and expectations of friendship to accommodate for today’s culture, or do we rearrange our expectations of today’s culture to accommodate for friendship?

What carries more weight, the culture or friendship?

Some may think that question may be looking too deeply into the current state of affairs as they pertain to friendships. But if one were to take my simple example, that is of an ordinary American who simply shares her opinions and information in an innocuous and non-threatening way on her own social media page, only to have a small number of people who were once her friends make the decision to unfriend her for those opinions, can’t we argue that we are indeed living in a time when our culture, that is, our expectations of how our friends should talk, act, and behave— has become greater than what the friendship is?

Our expectations of friendship have been rearranged to accommodate for today’s culture. I would add that our responsibilities in friendship have also been rearranged and reprioritized. No longer are we a society that values friendship above differences in opinions. No longer are friendships held in the highest esteem, with opinions, beliefs, and political stances being secondary in relationships.

This is, thankfully, not the norm in all relationships, and could be classified as a bit of an over generalization. We all have wonderful friendships we treasure, with people who are our polar opposites. These friendships survive and are sustained because the friendship is elevated above the culture. The relationship between people is what matters, and the differences in beliefs and opinions are secondary. Those are the Spirit Week friendships; the slumber party friendships; the favorite color friendships.

I have come to the conclusion in this season of my life, a life that touches six decades, that it is imperative to put more weight on our friendships than on our culture. I have taken stock of the friends in my life, the differences among us, sometimes the stark opposing views…and I have realized that all of the differences pale in comparison to the love and respect we have for one another and the friendship we share.

Over the course of 2020 and into 2021, I have examined my heart as I looked at the hurt and confusion over being so quietly and easily cut out of the lives of a handful of people I had, until that point, shared a mutual respect and friendship. I have been forced to question years-long mentorships, decades-long relationships, and even life-long friendships. I have been faced with the issue of wondering exactly what friendship means today compared to what friendship once meant. I have accepted the fact that my beliefs and opinions won’t always align with others, and that in today’s climate, that may mean that I lose some that I thought were my friends.

Even just ten short years ago, this discussion would be perceived as petulant, self-indulgent, and attention seeking. To use the age old adage, “back in the day”, a conversation of relationship statuses on social media, or the separation of relationships, would be seen as high drama and would bring about dismissiveness and disdain.

Today though? To unfriend someone has become completely normal, and not just for reasons of family rifts or growing apart. Today, it has become completely common to unfriend someone because of differences of opinion or politics. And The Unfriending can happen in a way that everyone knows about it (cue community pages in which drama has its day), or on the flip side, maybe no one, not even you, knows about it (cue the going to drop a sweet line on your friend’s page only to discover you’re no longer friends).

I understand there are instances in which people find the need to omit someone from their friends list: family struggles that are just too emotionally intense to maintain; abusive relationships; personal crisis that brings about the need to dramatically reduce the circle of people one interacts with…there have been times and instances when almost every one of those circumstances has found me needing to remove someone off of my friend list after much thought and introspection. Just because someone is on our social media platforms, doesn’t mean that they should automatically stay there forever.

But in this climate of casually unfriending with indifference, how does “the unfriended” one respond? What reaction should one have when the unfriending was clearly in regard to politics, taking offense to a difference in opinion? What response should one have when they’ve been on the cancelled end of cancel culture? Should one carry on as normal? When running into the unfriender at the grocery store, should the topic be brought up? Should one make mention of it privately? Or should one just carry on about their business as if nothing happened? How does one reconcile the sting of having a friendship on social media scrapped while living in a world that places no value on those same social media friendships?

I feel like too often today we allow ourselves to be acclimated to the complacency of our culture, when even just fifteen years ago, cutting someone out of our life for having a different set of political beliefs would have been deemed drastic and extreme. It has become acceptable to just cut out what we don’t like, and in a sense, plug our ears to anything that contradicts our beliefs or that offends us, even if in the slightest way.

What happens in a relationship once it has endured an unfriending?

Is it still a friendship?

When friendships hit a snag in the 70s and 80s, the two friends might have a falling out, maybe even yell at one another, and then quit speaking for a spell. Being out of sorts with childhood friends is a normal part of learning how to be friends, and invariably, the two friends would come back together, agree that they still liked one another, and pick back up the friendship where it left off.

What happens to a friendship though when there’s a falling out on social media, or even just a quiet walking away of one friend from the other? That all depends of course on the closeness of the relationship to begin with. Maybe if the relationship is with an acquaintance or a casual business colleague, the unfriending may be inconsequential and a minute event.

But if an actual friend? Does that person remain a friend? Or does unfriending someone communicate to them that you no longer value their opinions, their thoughts, their beliefs?

If you block someone, are you plugging your ears to anything they have to say and are essentially telling them that their words and what they have to say do not matter?

When someone is unfriended, should they assume that you no longer care about them? That you believe they do not matter?

When did friendship come to mean that we all must think the same? When did friendship stop being a celebration of differences and loving others and their warts, bumps, and bruises? When did conversations and healthy debates quit happening? How did our grandparents make lives, make homes, make love with those holding direct opposing political beliefs and still manage to laugh and love and make a life, but today, we are surrounded by those who cannot maintain a relationship or even tolerate an opinion that is in opposition to our world view?

Being on the receiving end of this dismissiveness several times over the past year, I have had some time to think through how I feel about what it means to be unfriended for differing opinions by those I truly thought were friends. I have come to the conclusion that this is the world we live in today, and while I may not like it, and though I may yearn for the simpler, truer, and purer friendships of the past, this is just where we are, and I can only truly control how I react to it and how I treat friendships.

I have decided that I will continue to honor friendship. I have decided that I will continue to place the person that is my friend above the political opinions they may hold. I have decided that should someone’s posts become too frustrating or irritating to me, I will not block them or unfriend them, silencing them or cutting them out of my life, but I will instead do as friends occasionally do and take a short break from one another and to do this, I will use the “snooze” feature, which provides a pause in their posts, allowing me to focus instead on the friendship.

I have decided that in today’s political climate, if two people are on opposing sides in most everything happening in the world today, they probably aren’t going to agree on much, so they either need to agree to elevate people above politics and love one another in spite of the chasm between their opinions, or they need to agree to walk away from the friendship because of it.

And if that’s what happens, I have decided that I will have to be okay with that and not hold a grudge or self-doubt in my heart.

But I have also decided that because of the value I place on friendship and how important it is to me, to our society, and to our world, when I find myself on the receiving end of the unfriending, I will no longer allow myself to be purveyed by those who’ve deemed me and my opinions deserving of being silenced. Self-respect and honoring the value of oneself are foundational to friendships, and even in the modernized parameters of what friendship on social media means, appropriate personal boundaries are so important. I have decided to be kind to myself and not subject myself to anyone who has decided that I am no longer more important than politics. I am perfectly fine being in disagreement over politics or religion, but when unfriended on social media over these things, I will take that to mean you no longer wish to be part of my life, which means there is no reason for you to be on any of my social media platforms.

If friends are truly friends, that means they love one another in spite of their differences, and sometimes even because of them. It means they respect the differences of their friends: color, creed, beliefs, opinions, and politics. It means our differences make this world beautiful and our perspectives help us understand one another. Unfriending someone tells them that none of that matters to you anymore, and that neither do they.

When we take a look back over our shoulder to how friendships once were, we begin to see how much they’ve changed. But we don’t have to allow ourselves to continue with the complacency of our culture. We can remember what it felt like to dress the same as our bestie for Spirit Week. We can contemplate some of the funny and childish ways we argued and then came back together after a spat on the playground. We can ponder how speaking privately and transparently to a friend changes the course of a relationship that lasts a lifetime. We can marvel at the written word and how our grandparents maintained a marriage and a family by choosing the words they used carefully, and how each word was treasured, even the ones that may have caused friction. We can resolve to consider our friendships, our friends, and their value as a person before we opt to cut them from our lives and our newsfeed because we disagree with their politics. We can work to elevate people above politics.

If we are able to do these things, we may just find ourselves in friendships that are richer and deeper and wider. We may find ourselves listening to people more instead of being so quick to be offended. We may find ourselves coming together instead of growing apart, and we may find fewer people on the receiving end of the unfriending.

***

The Unfriending – Cassandra Rankin
ENGL 270
April 2021

Works Cited:

“Friendship.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, http://www.dictionary.com/browse/friendship.

Hohmann, Lisa , Furman, Wyndol and Berger, Lauren. “Friendship”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 26 Jan. 2017, https://www.britannica.com/topic/friendship. Accessed 6 April 2021.

Cuthbertson, Anthony. “Facebook Friends Are Fake Friends, According to a Study.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 17 May 2016, http://www.newsweek.com/facebook-friends-are-fake-friends-study-finds-419189.

Sometimes a week’ll come at ya and it just won’t quit and you’ll get to the end of it feeling a bit pummeled about the head and neck and then when you think it’s all done, news will come that could near knock you to your knees but you remember…

You remember that no matter the stress…no matter the criticism…no matter the silence from those who should be speaking…no matter the juggling…the struggling…

You’ll remember that there are people in this world who are connected to you in a way that no one else will ever be and that all good things will someday run out their course and that the only thing to sometimes do is hold those people close, so close in your heart, and thank our Creator for making them and bringing them into your life and into this world where they shine and shine.

When the day pulls and tugs and your sighs bring sadness and your heart wants to stiffen and you yearn to hear all the words unsaid…

you remember all the months and all the years of a friendship building and how is it that when it finally reaches that comfortable peace of old friends who have been knowing one another well, seeing the heart even through distance…

how is it that so soon…too soon…how is it that it’s nearing the time when generations change and the young ones become old?

How is it?

Wasn’t it just yesterday when I brought my firstborn to her and we awkwardly made our way through such unfamiliar friendship and mothership joy and in her strong way she showed me how she used to stroke her babies on the forehead with her fingertips until they’d sleep peacefully?

How is it that the very same yowling baby brought dinner home tonight for his family and does he know that she was the one that put that in his daddy who then taught our boy so well?

Wasn’t it just a season ago that  I first observed her inward steeliness and confidence and watched her quietly from a distance, wondering what it must be like to carry life so stoickly within, before I boldly and shaking, secretly took a little piece of her grit for myself and admiringly made it my own when I made my last name the same as hers on that day I married her baby?

How is it that the same grit I learned from her helps me love that man and listen to him in a way I never would’ve had the patience for if I hadn’t have watched her love him first and that because she taught me that, I am blessed in ways unfathomable?

 Wasn’t it just hours ago that she traveled the continent to see the life that boy had made for himself?

Wasn’t it just last week that we sat in peace and we talked about the mountains so patient and we had understanding and we became friends?

Wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it just yesterday when I learned from her that you don’t have to agree…to love,  and that sometimes just accepting someone is the start to years of growing and understanding and friendship?

Wasn’t it all just yesterday?

So when the week pummels and your friends might not always act like your friends and the demands pile up and the days run too short for all the tasks, and the season may not look like what you thought it would…

Remember the ones who gave you the time you needed to become their friend and who let you grow until you became their family.

Remember that sometimes the week doesn’t always go right but that love always does and it is worth every second and every minute and every mile and every year because one day the years will taper and you’ll sit with them in your hands and in your lap and drawn on your heart…

and you’ll yearn for more time…

and you’ll wonder how all these weeks and all these years went so very fast.

 

    My boy sent me this piece that he wrote last month as a sample for the online writing course he is taking for 10th grade Composition this year. I hadn’t read it before today. 

I gasped when today, for the first time I read it.   

Sometimes we get glimpses of who our children really are…the person God designed when He formed them…and today, in my Inbox, I got a glimpse.

I got an oil painting/photograph/portrait/photocopy/lithograph/everyday YES of who my boy is, and who I see when I think of him as a grown man…

…and it took my breath away.

He said I could share it on my blog.

I passed off their writing instruction this year to an online coach and when they show their hearts…their minds…their writing…I beam, and I nod, and I sigh.

And sometimes…times like today…I cry quietly a little while my breath catches in my throat and I put it up in my heart and add it to the picture I see when I see them grown.

And just like my husband said when he read this…it is so beautiful.

I had to share it.

Sometimes they write our story.

And it is so beautiful. 

The Sounds of Silence

by Colton Rankin    

     Looking down the trail with the pack heavy on my back, I set off into the forest. The birds singing, and sound of small critters rustling around in the undergrowth are all familiar to my ears. As I go deeper and deeper in, the noises seem to get louder, but I start to relax knowing that with each step I am being carried away from the hustle and bustle of civilization. I reach a small creek and listen to the water flowing over the rocks. I pick up a smooth flat stone and run my fingers over it. And I wonder how long it took for the constant flow of water to wear down roughness of its surface.

     I did not bring my watch, or phone, but I guess it is noonish. I pause to look at my map. I am aiming to camp by a small lake. As I rest I hear the sounds of geese passing over me. Winter is coming, the animals are moving away from the cold harshness of it. Only the strong stay. I may not be migrating to get away from winter, but to get away from the same thing day in, day out. To live and experience something new. Let my senses take control, taste, see, feel, smell, and hear everything more vividly than before.

     I make to the lake with daylight to spare. I set camp, my tent, and sleeping bag. I gather wood for a fire. The view of the lake with forests and clearings set against a background of sky scraping mountains is breath taking. As I watch, trout start to rise on the lake, sucking in the insects that sit on the water. I grab my fishing pole and head down to the shore. I cast out and when the lure touches the water a fish inhales it. I set the hook, the fish leaps out of the water. It fights as hard as it can, but since it is only eight inches its struggle was short. I hold the small trout as it gulps for air. Easing the hook out of its mouth, I place it back in the water. As it swims out of my hand I feel the muscles along its body moving thought the water. And just like that, he is gone. Ever since I started fishing I released the first one I caught. Sometimes I released them all, but even if I was after fish to eat, I release the first one.

     I fish for a little more and catch a few more fish for my dinner. Fishing has a way of stopping time. Because when I looked up from my third fish, it was getting dark quickly. I got my fire started and the fish cooking. It was getting cold, so I put on coat, as the smell of cooking fish seemed to fill the woods.

     I sat outside my tent and ate the trout which just a little bit ago were swimming in the lake. And as I ate, a pair of loons started to call back and forth. An owl joined in hooting every so often. A pack of wolves somewhere on a faraway ridge howled at the full moon that was rising above the mountains. My campfire cracked and popped as it casted it light around. Not a single car horn, loud speaker, or persons voice could be heard. All the sounds of the wild are normally drowned out by the noise we create. We never hear them, they are silent while we fill the air noise and more noise. So, I sat, and I listened to the sounds that few can and are willing to hear, the sounds of silence.

He came close and kissed him and Isaac smelled the smell of his clothes. Finally, he blessed him,

 

 

      

       

Our world lost an amazing woman yesterday.

And today a blizzard came to Alaska.

The blizzard would be pretty unremarkable -this is Alaska- unless it wasn’t March and we weren’t all feeling the pull of spring.

And the world losing an amazing woman could be pretty unremarkable too except that it’s not, and cancer comes and shocks us with the surprise of death every time.

Just when we’re all feeling the pull of life.

We’re supposed to LIVE and this cancer is a scourge and it takes too many, and even losing one is too many so when the blizzard comes and we see cars in the ditch, -so many we stop counting- my teen driver says as only teen boys can…

WHOAH.

The car in the other lane slid like a Matchbox up the little plastic flexi-ramp of our 70s track and it just left the road and came down in the ditch, -the kind of ditch Alaska is so famous for; deep, steep, and hidden- and it lands like a cotton ball on a powder puff, complete with the powder cloud of snow puffing up all around it.

DUDE.

And we can almost get so busy we forget when the world loses a precious soul, but when I hopped out to make sure the car’s occupants were okay, she is still on my mind.

The car’s occupants were precious souls too, and it turns out they knew me (I so love a small town). I have my man-boy pull our truck off the dangerous curve and get us going on the way to Algebra class while I call the next-door fire department to come check on them as they wait for the tow truck I tracked down, and I call the road department for sand all before we’re five miles down the road.

So when it comes on the radio and I think of her again -so many times in these past twenty-four hours…

what’s it like when we get to where we’re going?

When we see our Maker’s face?

When we shed the sins and struggles?

When we cry only happy tears?

When we stand forever in the light of His amazing grace?

And last week we said good-bye to Billy and the world still rocks from our loss and Heaven’s gain. He was such a big name behind that big heart and big legacy, but on my little messy road, on the path through my blizzard…

…how many times has my little-name self landed in the ditch?

And how many times has someone stopped to pull me out?

She did.

When I was young, a pup yet, she took me under her arm, -her arm that was small but willed by her strong drive and strong love to make it work even when it was born not wanting to- and she saw who I was to become and she loved me like I already was where I was going.

And because she did, I got there.

So many others did too.

Love like that, laughter like that -even in the messy- it pushes us and grows us and fuels us even when the road is sloppy and the ditches are deep.

After Brad and Dolly sang, I had a minute to think while my boy drove us on, and I had a smile at the thought of her laughing her way right on up to the One who gave her that laugh, that sound of pure joy.

And then I marveled at how life works because how, on this very same day, could another friend celebrate healing after finishing her last treatment? How could joy and praise mingle up with loss, all at the same time, all from the same disease?

I didn’t get to marvel too long because then Alan came on and it wasn’t Chattahoochee -that song that will forever and always bring her and the old jukebox in the break room to my mind and my heart- but it was Neon Rainbow or Itty Bitty or one of his lesser-known-but equally-beloved songs and I can hear her say

I’m restless. Let’s take a break.

And I see her toe tap and her pant leg sways over the curve of her dressy flats, and then she’s throwing her head back and laughing at something the guys on the forklifts say while Alan gives way to Randy and then Trisha and they come on all tinny and familiar and fill all the minutes and all these years.

I haven’t heard that laugh in over a decade, but I will never forget it all my days because there are so many who will miss it all their days.

She taught me so much and she formed me so much and this world won’t ever be the same.

And later that night, I text the driver of the car in the ditch to see if they made it home. We talked and talked and she wouldn’t have been able to get up out of that ditch had we not come by.

Sometimes a ditch can be so steep.

Sometimes we just need a friend to come along and help us up.

And sometimes those friends line the curved and twisted road of our heart and we won’t ever forget them because if it weren’t for them, we would never have gotten to where we were going.

The blizzard slowed and our new friends got home safely and the day calmed and I still can’t imagine a world without her in it.

But I can hear her say I’m restless. Let’s take a break…

then throw her head back and laugh while she taps her toe.

That sound of pure love and warmth…

Peace.

Joy.

And I can’t wait to see her when I get where I’m going.

~

In memory of Chuck (Sharla) Mitchell. The best boss I ever had; cherished wife, mother, grandmother, sister. Friend to many. And to me. 

3/7/18

 

It’s a funny thing when God answers prayers that you didn’t even know you were praying.

When He sends friends you didn’t know you were in need of…

When He sends a new routine you didn’t know you were missing…

When He sends people to fill a void you didn’t even know was there…

All those little ways He tells you…

In the good times and in the bad times…

In the happy times and in the mournful times…

In the easy times and in the hard times…

He never lets go.

Oh no, you never let go, every high and every low,

Oh no, you never let go, Lord you never let go of me.