Valuing a Friend

My friend Karma’s daughter Jangdren, who goes to Tiny Toes Daycare Centre with my daughter Dechen fell down in the bathroom and hurt her forehead. When the carers called her mother, they informed her that it was a small cut and she need not worry. When she picked her up and got home, she took off the bandaid because of the unease she felt. She couldn’t trust the words of the carers. She was shocked to find that it was a deep cut. It needed two stitches at the Emergency department of  JDWNRH.

But my point is not this. Dechen went to school and Jangdren had been missing from school for nearly the whole week. On Tuesday, when she got home, she told me, ‘Jangdren charo mawa, sad sad riwa’. She meant to tell me that because her friend Jangdren wasn’t there, she was sad. So when we went to school the next day, I told her that she would have come too. Until her remarks, I didn’t know why she literally ran inside the school corridor. It has shoe racks on both sides of the wall, with names and pictures (balloon for Jangdren and helicopter for Dechen) clearly indicating where their shoes should be kept. She eyed the place for Jangdren and said, ‘Jangdren mang pha la’, with her voice dropping in sadness. Of course I know that we build friendship from as young as them but to witness the hollow feeling they get without each other, the way they enjoy each other’s company and the feeling of missing someone dear – the pang of it all hit me and felt for them. And yesterday, when she got home, she happily told me that Jangdren had come to school! I shared the joy with the excitement she felt in getting her friend back, her wound having fully recovered.

I’m glad that I could write about their friendship in August, a month during which a friendship day is celebrated. Though, this is not an elaborate article, I would want them to read it when they have grown up to know that they have been friends since they were 3. I wish that, just as their parents, their friendship will grow and see them through their lives.