Be What You Can Be

When I was in college, I was broke.  There would be times (quite often, according to them) when I would call up some friends and essentially invite myself over for dinner.  This is something my mother taught me not to do, and I strive now to dissuade my 3 kids from calling friends to say, "Hey, can I come over?"  That's just not polite.  But somehow I managed to do it to these particular friends, and they seemed not to mind.

Somehow, by coincidence or whatever, on days when I would have dinner at my friends' house, they would either plan to have, or just ended up having spaghetti.  This has become our tradition.  And a wonderful tradition it is!  Yesterday, I sent them a message and simply asked if they were free for dinner.  I was thinking we could meet at a restaurant, or something.  Well, they invited me to their house for.... Garden Goulash.  Not quite spaghetti, but close.  To make Garden Goulash, they take whatever veggies they can find in their fridge, throw them in a dish with pasta and some tomato sauce, cover it with cheese and pop it into the oven.  YUM!!  So, I guess my dinners with them have matured to variations on pasta and sauce.

At the end of dinner, my hostess brought out, as she usually does, a few small plastic containers and offered them to me to take home leftovers.  As I was scooping heaping spoonful after heaping spoonful of the wonderful Garden Goulash into these containers, I started to feel guilty.  I laughed and said, "I invite myself to dinner, then take the leftovers.  What a great friend I am!"  My host smiled, looked at me and said, "You didn't invite yourself.  You were simply letting us know when you were free."  Then he said, in a slightly more serious tone, "There are a thousand things we can't be.  This, we can.  We'll be what we can be."

This is not the first time he has said this to me, nor will it be last, I imagine.  There is good sentiment in that statement... Be what you can be.  So many times when our friends have problems, or are hurting, we want to solve it all for them and do anything we can to make it go away.  In reality, we, as outsiders to the problem, can usually do very little to solve it.  However, we can be good role models, friends, supports, sounding boards, venting outlets, a shoulder to cry on... or good dinner company.  Be what you can be, for whoever needs you.  When you need it, chances are someone will be there for you.

Cheers!