I was chatting with my old friend Pat last week and we suddenly found ourselves on the topic of caring and sharing. We were in a huge department store and the large box which obviously contained breakable China or other glass items had been stored in a corner where it was hopefully safe.
It got me thinking. Is glassware one of the few pieces you treat gently? Are they the only things we must handle with care? Often, we don’t realise that human beings need to be handled with a great deal of extra concern.
Friendship is a wonderful relationship. It can develop slowly over the years or be an instant rapport between two people who have just met. A true friend is loyal, understanding and sympathetic. She is aware of the pitfalls of life and how she must stand up and be counted to trust and keep her friend’s reputation intact.
Do we treat our family members and parents with special care? It used to be rare to see a child being rude to his mother especially if there was an audience watching gleefully. Today unfortunately that is not the norm but the exception to the rule. Change has to happen, but it can be controlled. When the trembling hand drops coffee on your best tablecloth, be tolerant. Think of how much of her China you might have smashed!
If your aged father asks you what you said long after you had finished talking, don’t let him know that; repeat it, as for the first time. Can you not recall how many times he must have read the same bedtime story to you, just because it was your favourite?
Let me share Patience Strong’s poem ‘Porcelain’:
Take care how you handle glass or precious porcelain
Broken it can never be a perfect piece again
Take care how you treat the objects you are treasuring
With one clumsy movement you can smash a lovely thing
Take care how you handle your families and friends
Many a family breaks up, many a friendship ends
Because an unmeant word was said and taken to the heart
Like a broken ornament love cracks and falls apart
Some folks may be sensitive, so handle them with care
But how much easier it is to deal with earthenware
People who can laugh things off and an allowance make
If you get too fragile, they will break – you give and take
Very true and unfortunately it is easily forgotten!