The good feeling of meeting old friends

Last week as I was coming out of the bank I was greeted by an old friend. We used to work together a few years ago. She was waving to me excitedly from across the road. We hadn’t seen each other in a while and so even though we were short of time we stood there speaking, animatedly catching up on recent happenings. As we stood there and spoke, another old friend, who also used to work with us at the same time, suddenly came up to us, she was on her way to the bank as well. We stood there for a few minutes, the three of us chatting and laughing as we spoke.

In a few short minutes we had managed to speak about our most recent happenings, how we’ve been doing, how our families were doing and we even managed to get in some discussion about Muslim women and their contributions to society. After our short break from reality we all walked away to continue with our tedious chores for the day, but we were smiling and we felt quite good.

That’s the way it is with old friends, especially friends who have so much in common with you. You may not see them in years, and when you do you can pick up as if you just saw them yesterday. I believe this is a blessing and mercy from Allah Almighty as well. Allah puts people in our lives, and bonds are created, and for a moment in our lives we spend every day with those people, and then it’s time to move on, but even though we see much less of those friends thereafter, the bonds that were created still continues on, and the good times you’ve spent together will never be forgotten.

This is because each encounter we have with different people contributes to making us who we are today. So in actual fact, we are all linked to one another eternally; sometimes in small ways, and sometimes in big ways. Some things I will never forget from the people I’ve associated with over the years. For instance, one of these friends I met last week is responsible for teaching me how to wrap my headscarf in the way I still wear it now. Other things are more subtle, and we may not even realize how we have being influenced. Even though things may not always be great between us and the people we mix with (we all have our good and bad moments), in the end, the effects that people have had on us cannot be denied. We cannot meet and associate with people and remain unchanged, and this is one of the beautiful things about life. Subhanallah!

So last week my friends and I went in our own directions and we probably won’t see each other for a while again, but it certainly was good to have met my two friends again.

Image taken from: http://thecassignolwriters.blogspot.com/