The power of a friend

To have a friend. To share laughter, smiles, dreams, moments in time. To have someone to hug. Someone who understands. Someone who wants to be with you. Someone who looks out for you, seeks out your company. Talks about you. To see a smile on someone’s face when your name is mentioned. To know someone cares and loves you.

This.

Well what can I say? My daughter has found the magic that we know as a friend.

I have spent hours reading her a social story written by her speech therapist. To the point both Naomi and myself have it memorised. “I can say ‘hi’ to someone and take their hand. We can have fun playing together.” How simple does that sound? But when you can’t get that little word ‘hi’ out because you are so frightened, so anxious and overwhelmed. When you see so many faces of children that you can’t work out who the ‘someone’ could be. When you don’t have the courage to touch another child let alone take their hand. So we read the social story, we talked about it and we even tried to act it out. But we still had a child coming home from nursery with hands on her hips complaining ‘mummy, they want me to talk to other children. Why would I want to do that?’.

How do you explain the beauty of friendship to a child who loves their own company more than anything else? Friendship has to be experienced to see the true wonder of it. The healing that can come through having someone want to be with you. The joy that comes from sharing life with someone else.

And then Sarita started nursery.

Naomi couldn’t say ‘hi’ like her story said she should. So she smiled instead. And Sarita smiled back. That was 9 weeks ago. Now one three year old child has changed my daughters life. She started talking to Sarita on the bus. And then began to talk to her in the nursery room. And one day her nursery teacher asked Naomi a question. And because she had broken her silence by talking to her friend, with Sarita right by her side, my daughter found the strength to answer the teacher in a voice that could be heard.

With Sarita sitting beside her, Naomi has started taking part in snack time. Her little voice can now be heard at singing time mingled beside the sweetest voice of her friend. Naomi is choosing to play beside her friend rather than hiding in a corner looking at books. Where before Naomi would watch on while others participated, she is now following the lead of her friend and joining activities she has never touched in almost two years in the nursery room.

The girls have photos of each other in their homes. I can’t begin to explain just how much Sarita and her siblings and parents mean to me in the short time I have known them. I can not even explain the amount we all have in common. The girls could not have found a more perfect friend in each other.

And my heart rejoices. My 5 year old is experiencing the power of friendship. And in doing so she is linking two families, helping two mothers walk together and help each other, encouraging many and bringing healing.

The power of a friend.