Everyone wants one, everyone needs one, and everyone has one: a special someone who you can call your friend.  But what exactly is a friend?

     F-R-I-E-N-D: Friend.  Pronunciation: frend.  Part of speech: noun.  The American College Dictionary defines “friend” as:

1.     One attached to another by feelings of personal regard.

2.     A well-wisher, patron, or supporter.

3.     One who is on good terms with another; one not hostile.

     To me, a friend is much more than this.  They are not only “someone who is attached to another by feelings of personal regard.”  They are someone who cares for another unconditionally.  They are not only “a well-wisher, patron, or supporter.”  They are someone who is there for another through the good times and the bad, no matter how difficult it may be.  They are not only “someone who is on good terms with another” or “someone who is not hostile.”  They are someone who loves another entirely.

     “What is a friend?  A single soul dwelling in two bodies” (Aristotle).  “A friend is one before whom I may think aloud” (Ralph Waldo Emerson).  “The real friend can share all our sorrow and double our joys” (B.C. Forbes).

     “Friend: One who knows all about you and loves you just the same” (Elbert Hubbard).  “A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away” (Anonymous).

     “A true friend gives freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeable” (William Penn).  “A true friend doesn’t care what I’ve done or where I’ve been; there’s an unconditional commitment that will never die” (Michael W. Smith).  “Friendship is celebrating each other’s successes and bearing each other’s burdens” (Unknown).

     This is what a friend is.  You share each other’s sorrows and joys.  You know each other’s biggest fears.  You rejoice in each other’s successes.  You endure each other’s burdens.  You know and keep each other’s deepest secrets.  They know your heart’s desire and you know theirs.

     Amigo, buddy, chum, comrade.  Crony, mate, pal.  Whatever the word, a friend is a friend.  Ally, backer, confidant, companion.  Defender, encourager, partner.  Playmate, sidekick, supporter.  A friend is all of these.  But, most of all, a friend is a special person who no amount of words could ever describe.  As Samuel Johnson said, “We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed.  As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over, so in a series of kindnesses there is a last one that makes the heart run over.”