A friend’s eye is a good mirror. This is an Irish quote I really like.
I had a few friends over last Friday night. One was a new friend as she bought my alpacas recently. One I worked with and she helped me edit my book. One was my sweetest neighbor. Three I have breakfast with at least once a week and three were friends from grade school and high school who surprised me by making the trek to my house finally after 10 years!
At one point during the evening it was suggested that each one of them say what they admired about me. I know, totally cool, right?
Even so my stomach tightened just a bit. Knowing some of these ladies as long as I have, they could say almost anything!
As we all know an “old friend” can have a lot of dirt on you when she’s known you since kindergarten. My friend likes to tell people I pulled her hair the first day we met but that’s not true. The teacher pulled her ponytail because she had stuck her tongue out at me and I only laughed. I am sure you would have laughed too!
We later became friends and agreed our kindergarten teacher wasn’t very nice.
At Birch Grove Elementary, my grade school, we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by making shamrocks from three green hearts cut from construction paper. At some point we were told about leprechauns leaving a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I spent many hours after a rain looking for this pot. I did find some interesting glass bottles and jars in the woods but none held anything more than a little dust and rainwater.
It didn’t stop me from liking St. Patrick’s Day though, as green was my very favorite color!
Mike and I were married a week after St. Patrick’s Day in 1998. We asked our guests to write us notes with words of encouragement or marital advice. We gathered them all up and read them on the way to San Francisco for our honeymoon.
I had two favorites: Mike’s aunt wrote, “I vowed that I would never get divorced but I never said I wouldn’t kill him.” As my mom would say, you better sleep with one eye open pal.
The other had a more Irish flair: “May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; and may the skin of your ass never cover a banjo.” It was years before I realized the skin he was referring to was not actually mine, but the skin of a donkey.
Throughout the reception there were heartfelt toasts, supportive conversations and in the end we were able to see ourselves as a couple through our friend’s eyes. It’s a good mirror.
May you always walk
in sunshine.
May you never want for more
May Irish angels rest their
wings right beside your door.
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of homestyle recipes.
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