The Kindness of Childhood Friends

"A friend is what the heart needs all the time."

~ Henry Van Dyke

I have been blessed with a group of childhood girl friends.  We have known each other since we were eight or nine years old and graduated from high school together.  In the decades since meeting, we have celebrated everything from single-digit birthdays to adult milestone ones, attended each other's weddings and comforted each other through losses.  Last year, we enjoyed the wedding of a daughter of one of the "girls." 

On a recent evening, one girl was in town for a reception for her first book.  Unfortunately, the father of one of the other friends passed away and the wake was the same night as the book reception.  So we did what friends do.  We went to the wake, then to the book launch and back to the wake, where we stayed until the end.