There’s a secret friend waiting for you

Several years ago, I wrote a regular column for the JEANS section of 'The Nation'.  The editor of JEANS, Kusumanjalee Thilakarathna now handles the 'Littlestars' tabloid distributed with 'The Sunday Morning'. This is the eleventh article for Littlestars.  Scroll down to find the full series of articles written for JEANS and the those of this new series.

‘…just waiting for me like some secret friend…’ is a line from an old song. It refers to a man who wakes up in the middle of the night and spots his guitar. For a guitarist, his or her guitar is certainly a friend.  An instrument could give comfort, companionship and peace of mind, I’m sure.  

Friends comfort us. Friends with names. School friends, for example. Neighbors too.  Even pets are friends and sometimes they put smiles on our faces when we are sad. 

There was once, for example, a little girl who often felt quite alone. She was the youngest in her family and all her three brothers were considerably older than her. She was considered too small to play with them or be part of their conversations. Their parents were usually busy doing other important things; they didn’t have time for their little girl. 

So she would tell all her stories to Bella, their pet dog. She would read Bella bedtime stories. She would keep Bella informed about what’s happening in the world. She knew what was happening around her only by listening to what others in the household said. She often got it all wrong, but Bella didn’t seem to mind. Bella was a huge dog and much bigger than the little girl. The girl would sometimes lean against Bella and read stories. She would fall asleep that way.

The important thing for her was that she had someone to tell things to, someone who would listen to her. Bella never responded, true, but she always felt that Bella was listening and that Bella understood.  

Michael Jackson once sang a song about a pet rat. The song was written by Don Black and the melody was composed by Walter Scharf for a movie called ‘Ben’. Ben, apparently, was a pet rat. Just read these lyrics…

Ben, the two of us need look no more

We both found what we were looking for

With a friend to call my own

I'll never be alone, and you, my friend, will see

You've got a friend in me

Ben, you're always running here and there

You feel you're not wanted anywhere

If you ever look behind and don't like what you find

There's something you should know, you've got a place to go.

Not all friends looks like us. Not all of them go to school. Some don’t even speak our language. Some don’t move — like the guitar in Kenny Rogers’ song ‘She believes in me.’

I have friends who’ve told me they have secret friends no one knows about. Such friends have names. If you asked about them, you’ll be told a lot of things. Sometimes you feel your friends are lying, but sometimes you really can’t tell. What’s important is that these secret friends (like pets or guitars) can make a difference to your life, especially when it seems no one talks to you, no one listens to you or no one understands you.  

Do you have friends? Don’t you have friends? Maybe you can start talking to your guitar, if you have one, or even a pencil case or a set of crayons. Maybe they’ll listen and you’ll be convinced they are listening. They might even say something to you, in their own way, and even though no one would understand, maybe you would! 

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