What "Bluey" and Friends have in Common

Outside of family, most of us have friends who provide support, comfort, or a social network that generally keeps us grounded in what is truly good in life. Although we may recognize ourselves as having many friends, most of us have someone special that we can call our "best friend", perhaps someone from childhood, a classmate from school, or maybe someone from our days in summer camp. Friends come in many varieties. However, sometimes a friend is not a person at all, but in fact, a friend may be a "something", yet it may possess all the qualities you'd find in a best friend.

When my niece and nephew were born, each had a personal baby blanket, one pink and one blue. After all, doesn't every newborn baby need to be wrapped in "swaddling" clothes and then placed in a crib at some point in time? Over time, the blankets would get laundered and then returned to their rightful owner, hopefully without missing a critical appearance at nap or bedtime. Some intuitive parents even have a duplicate to avoid the disastrous possibility of the eventual "MIA" nightmare. My niece recently misplaced her fabled "Bluey", and the fallout was similar to losing a best friend. Fortunately, once "Bluey" was recovered from its nesting place in the carrying case for the compact discs and the friendship was restored, so too was the world around the entire family.

In the popular children's Christmas movie, "A Charlie Brown Christmas", Linus addresses this very issue quite calmly when he says that he'll simply make his blanket into a sport coat, thus averting the need to emotionally outgrow its usefulness. Yes, Linus and my niece, along with a vast number of other young people, share a common "thread" when it comes to the relationship that they each have with that swatch they call their blanket.

Who knows why such an intense symbiotic relationship begins and continues to exist, sometimes well into adulthood. However, if I had such a reliable source of "comfort" as my niece has with her "Bluey", I suspect that I'd surround myself with friends just like she has. Remember what Clarence wrote to George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life?" "No man is a failure who has friends", and isn't that the truth? Friends and "Bluey" are kindred spirits in many ways. So, take friends wherever you go, never lose track of them, and they will always remain close to you!