Just Need A Friend

The interaction between my two boys interests me to no end.  Griffin is five and Gage is two.  They are each other’s best friend and worst enemy.

My eldest has reached that age where he is becoming scared of things.  He’s cautious about people, afraid of what’s in the dark, and petrified of hydrogen peroxide.  I think sometimes he’d scream less if we just ripped his foot off instead of trying to clean the wound, but that’s neither here nor there.

Gage on the other hand is either not old enough or not smart enough to be scared of anything.  Sometimes I wonder if he ever will be.  I’ve told my wife, on more than one occasion, that Gage will be our ER baby.  He’ll be the kid that gets to know the nurses on a first name basis and have a file as thick as a quarter pound cheeseburger.  I must be partially prophetic, since Gage already holds the record for ER visits above his older brother.

Anyway, we’ve begun to notice lately, how Griffin uses his brother’s “courage” to his own advantage.  At his grandparent’s house, he’ll routinely send Gage into dark rooms to retrieve whatever toy he’s looking for.  And, despite great effort on our part to teach them the concept of privacy, he’ll ask his little brother to come into the bathroom with him while he uses it.

It’s not as if the little two-year old will be able to fight off whatever is menacing him.  Surely he knows this in his head.  Yet, the fact that he’s not alone has the calming effect he needs.

I’ve experienced something very similar in my own life.  You’ll think it sounds crazy, but before I was married, I couldn’t watch horror movies.  It was all fine until I lay down to go to sleep at night, and then the frightening images would roll back through my head.  Not so anymore.  Now that I don’t go to bed alone, I don’t have the same propensity for fear.

I’m not a psychologist so I can’t tell you why being in the presence of another human being has that effect.  Maybe it’s because I know that whatever situation comes up, I won’t be facing it alone.  Maybe it’s because I know I could outrun her if we were being chased by something.  Who knows.

What I do know, is that sometimes, it’s just nice not to be by yourself.

I don’t know how you feel about the Bible.  But a document that has survived 2,000 years has got to have something in it worth listening to.  Proverbs 18:24 tells us that there is a “friend that is closer than a brother.”  I’ve felt the closeness of a brother, and I’ve watched the closeness that my two sons share.  And I have to say, it’s a comfort to know there’s someone out there that will be even closer to me than that.

Sometimes, there’s no one around when we need them.  Yet, we’ll find if we reach out; God is always there.