12 Reasons Why You Need Family And Friends

I’m sure there are more than 12 reasons why you need family and friends, but I will start with this number today. I have had a lot of time lately to think back over my life and think about my family and friends. I’ve had a very good life, compared to some people I know. My husband, Mark loves me more than I can even describe. I have been very, very blessed with his compassion and love for me.

I grew up in a negative family situation. My mom was a single mom and later married a wonderful man. But life was still very hard for me growing up. I would have to say I have PTSD from my childhood. You don’t need to know the details, but Mark has made me the woman I am today. I do need to say my mom taught me to work hard and be strong, and I’m thankful for that.

I’m sure the people that really know me, like Elaine, Sarah, and Heather would never guess I had a bad childhood. I have never dwelled on it or blamed my parents or grandparents for how I was treated. They have known me as a happy-go-lucky person who smiles all the time.

We can laugh, giggle and cry together. There is something very important about having friends and family you can rely on. So let’s get started with a few of my ideas. I would love to add your ideas as well.

Table of Contents

12 Reasons We Need Family And Friends

1. Meals:

We can laugh, and giggle while we enjoy time together with family and friends. We can fix meals in the kitchen at someone’s house and burn the bacon and still eat it. Just a note, this happened over Easter weekend. We still ate the bacon, it was just a little more crunchy than usual. The Easter egg hunt took longer than expected, life is good when you can laugh about burnt bacon.

2. Phone calls:

I know that social media is very popular and serves a purpose. But, there is something really awesome about talking to someone rather than texting them. Yes, of course, I text all the time, but I love hearing my friends’ voices. My adopted granddaughter, Jenna sent me a text last night to let me know her mom was going to the hospital on Monday.

I called her mom within 15 minutes of the text. I HAD to talk to her mom, I HAD to hear her voice. I had to laugh with her because that’s what we do. Life is good when you have awesome friends you can call anytime and catch up on life.

3. Holidays:

Nothing is better than inviting friends and family over to celebrate holidays, and I mean any holiday. I love excuses to get together with each other. I love hearing different family traditions from new friends as well as old friends. Don’t you love hearing what food each family specializes in for certain holidays?

I love tasting new side dishes and sharing the recipes. As you may know already, I LOVE appetizers, they are my favorite food items! I wish I lived closer to my kids and grandkids so I could go to all their birthdays, but that isn’t always possible.

4. Funerals:

I must tell you funerals can be happy or sad. I had to stop going to funerals after I went to a celebration for our best friends’ son, Aaron after he died. His non-funeral was a celebration of life. I will never go to another funeral again, sorry, I can’t. Aaron’s was joyful and we all shared memories of his life. Our best friend had the celebration with his wife and three young kids at a park and lunch was catered.

As I remember well over 400 people attended. His life was cut way too short, but his life lives on through his wife, kids, parents, and siblings. I want my non-funeral to duplicate his. He was a hockey player and coach and the youth and their families came out in droves. I can still remember watching him as a kid water ski behind a boat! What an amazing dad he was! Great memories of a great family and friends.

5. Lunches After Funerals:

Now, I do not like going to funerals, I will sometimes go to viewings. Please don’t judge me, I tell people I love them before they die. I do, however, LOVE going to the lunches AFTER the burials. Here’s the deal, you talk, laugh, and giggle with friends and family you haven’t seen in years. Facebook is fine, and I love seeing what some of my friends and extended family are doing. But talking and giggling face-to-face rocks! I mean it rocks with love!

6. Family Loves You No Matter What:

You can always count on family to love you no matter what. Of course, life isn’t always perfect, but family is family. We accept each other for who we are, and here again, we can laugh and giggle together.

7. Reminisce About Old Stories:

Don’t you just love old family-friend stories we all lived to tell about? I start getting the giggles inside thinking about one story when Mark and I lived in Farmington, Utah. Why dwell on negative stories when you can tell really good stories that maybe the younger kids haven’t heard yet? You know the stories sometimes change a little over the years and some of us can’t remember this or that, but we still laugh and giggle.

It’s called history. Mark’s mother wrote a journal her whole married life, maybe even when she was younger, I don’t know. It would be nice to keep a journal, but nowadays people take pictures and make photo books with pictures. Pictures tell a thousand words, right? Add a story along with the pictures and you have a true treasure.

8. Being A Friend:

When you are a friend you help your friends be better people. They help us be better people. We tend to choose those friends that are happy, optimistic, and love life. Who needs a Debbie Downer around, right? I must admit I’ve been called a Pollyanna, and that’s okay, I own it. I have been called a cheerleader by my life coach, Lyn. Life is good when you have good friends.

9. Less Lonely When You Have Friends:

My biggest regret in life is how lonely my mom was after my dad died. Unfortunately, because she was lonely in her later years she became somewhat of an unhappy recluse. She became angry, although I didn’t understand it at the time. Now that I am older and a bit wiser, I think I understand her moods. It does make me sad because I didn’t visit her when I had my career life.

I lived about 400 miles away, but that is no excuse. I see that now. She just needed someone to take her to lunch, to visit her, and pamper her. I didn’t do that. That is something I regret BIG time. If you have an older neighbor or relative you live close to, please visit them often. They need it and you will grow from it. I know, because I try to visit my lonely neighbors now. People need friends, no doubt about it.

10. Stay Clear of Unhappy Friends and Family:

We all know the ones at family reunions we all want to sit by, and the ones at neighborhood lunches we love sitting by. We also know the friends and family members that can make us miserable and they probably don’t even know it. They whine and complain and are sometimes just plain hard to be around. But it’s life, what can we say? They are family and friends. But, please keep your distance for your own health and stress level.

11. Friends Support Us Through Thick And Thin:

I remember calling the friends above after I learned one of my daughters had just been diagnosed with a disease. I could hardly say the words through the tears. I felt guilty because I thought maybe I had eaten something when I was pregnant with her that caused this awful disease, or what I fed her, or whatever.

I knew I had to call my friends. I called Elaine first and we cried together, then Heather, then Sarah. I knew they would understand how I felt. I get emotional just thinking about when I made those phone calls. Thank goodness for friends, awesome friends.

12. Gender Doesn’t Matter With Friends:

I have female friends and male friends. I know I can call any one of them and they will listen and console me if needed. I’m making it sound like I call my friends all the time to be consoled. I don’t. But I have called them for advice because they wouldn’t judge me. They would listen. Listening is being a really good friend and sharing advice when needed.

One of my really good male friends is more like a brother to me. We would call each other about every six months or so until he started getting Dementia or Alzheimer’s. I cry when I think about the 25+ years we have been friends. He has gone downhill faster than I would have expected.

Age is not always good for us. May God bless all those who care for family members with Dementia or Alzheimers in their homes. I see it here where I live, it’s a 24/7 hour job for those neighbors.

Final Word

Please hug your family members every time you see them and tell them you love them. Please do the same with your friends, I promise they would love to hear how much you care about them. Mark has a number of “best” friends, and they tell each other often how much they truly value their friendships. They express their love to each other as well.

Life is good with friends that love you. May God bless you to express your love to family and friends today, not tomorrow. Tomorrow may not come. Thanks again for being prepared for the unexpected.

Ah Linda ~ Difficult childhoods and if I may, young adulthoods are sometimes hard to overcome. My youth was spent in a dysfunctional home. There was no abuse but love was not expressed often and sometimes that makes a sensitive child wonder about if there was love.

I have 4 older siblings and one younger. Three of my older siblings would say that there was no love expressed. Perhaps Mom and Dad learned a thing or two by the time I rolled around!! That being said, my parents were somewhat verbal about having wanted to stop having children after my 4th older sibling. They thought they had the perfect family – 2 boys and 2 girls. One of my older sisters told me that when my mom got pregnant with me, she wanted to end the pregnancy. Of course, in the early 50s, that was not a possibility (or at least not as easily done as it would be now). That preyed heavily on my young adulthood. I really never thought that they didn’t love me though and actually I thought (as I look back) that mom and dad treated me differently than all of my siblings. More like they treated me as though I was “special” which may have also been difficult for my siblings.

My oldest brother has never said anything specific but many of his actions indicate that there was no love lost between him and my mother. I don’t know what went on there but… And my oldest sister has a difficult time with discussing anything that went on when she was a child. My other older sister and my mother were “enemies” when she was growing up. Apparently, she and mom had knock down drag out fights.

Anyway – I have always said to my siblings, that they could use the way they were reared as a crutch or as a stepping stone. A crutch to explain their own disfunctionality or a stepping stone to make their life better.

After my mother died in 1993, my sisters and I decided to have “sister weekends” and yearly the 4 of us get together for shopping, eating, and just fun. However, as my two older sisters get older (one in her 80s and the other late 70s) it is getting more and more difficult. My father died in 2006 and before that, we all tried to get together for Christmas at least. Now we 6 get together for a “sibling Christmas” each year just before Christmas. So we are trying to keep the family going. This all becomes more challenging as we all have our own families to enjoy.

As for friends, I find that the most challenging of all. I have a couple of friends who have been in my life for 25+ years but we have a difficult time finding time for each other. New friends are easier I think but they don’t really know me yet. Always a work in progress!!

2 Comments

Leanne Long says:

March 25, 2019 at 9:40 am

Ah Linda ~ Difficult childhoods and if I may, young adulthoods are sometimes hard to overcome. My youth was spent in a dysfunctional home. There was no abuse but love was not expressed often and sometimes that makes a sensitive child wonder about if there was love.

I have 4 older siblings and one younger. Three of my older siblings would say that there was no love expressed. Perhaps Mom and Dad learned a thing or two by the time I rolled around!! That being said, my parents were somewhat verbal about having wanted to stop having children after my 4th older sibling. They thought they had the perfect family – 2 boys and 2 girls. One of my older sisters told me that when my mom got pregnant with me, she wanted to end the pregnancy. Of course, in the early 50s, that was not a possibility (or at least not as easily done as it would be now). That preyed heavily on my young adulthood. I really never thought that they didn’t love me though and actually I thought (as I look back) that mom and dad treated me differently than all of my siblings. More like they treated me as though I was “special” which may have also been difficult for my siblings.

My oldest brother has never said anything specific but many of his actions indicate that there was no love lost between him and my mother. I don’t know what went on there but… And my oldest sister has a difficult time with discussing anything that went on when she was a child. My other older sister and my mother were “enemies” when she was growing up. Apparently, she and mom had knock down drag out fights.

Anyway – I have always said to my siblings, that they could use the way they were reared as a crutch or as a stepping stone. A crutch to explain their own disfunctionality or a stepping stone to make their life better.

After my mother died in 1993, my sisters and I decided to have “sister weekends” and yearly the 4 of us get together for shopping, eating, and just fun. However, as my two older sisters get older (one in her 80s and the other late 70s) it is getting more and more difficult. My father died in 2006 and before that, we all tried to get together for Christmas at least. Now we 6 get together for a “sibling Christmas” each year just before Christmas. So we are trying to keep the family going. This all becomes more challenging as we all have our own families to enjoy.

As for friends, I find that the most challenging of all. I have a couple of friends who have been in my life for 25+ years but we have a difficult time finding time for each other. New friends are easier I think but they don’t really know me yet. Always a work in progress!!

1. Linda Loosli says:
  
  March 25, 2019 at 12:03 pm
  
  Hi Leanne, we all have a story, don’t we? It can be good or bad. It’s what we do with our life that matters. I love hearing you get together with your siblings, that’s so awesome! As we get older or live far away from each other it gets harder. Life is good because we make it that way! Yes, it is a work in progress. Linda