Evergreen Friendship
by Linda Sammaritan
Have you ever noticed that friendships seem to have their seasons, much like a flower garden offers different blooms at various times of the year?
For instance, think back to your earliest friendships in elementary school, maybe even further back to preschool. Those friendships seem like playful daffodils nodding in a spring breeze. They usually don’t last a long time because kids grow so fast and their interests change so often.
Then there are friendships in the teen years. Very few will last a lifetime, but while we were in middle school and high school, friendships were passionate, like the showy blooms of summer. Fast climbing clematis with deep purple flowers—ups and downs, “best friends forever” one day and “she’s the worst person in the world” the next.
As we mature, we seek out longer-lasting friendships, a reminder of autumn and how the mums and the asters last for weeks. However, in winter, there are no flowers at all in my Indiana garden, and in the winter of our lives, many friends have already passed on.
There is one type of friend who lasts through every season. I call it “evergreen friendship.” Just as pine trees provide color to an otherwise bare landscape, lifelong friends, whether they met each other in kindergarten or in college or later, provide a bright spot in old age.
We women love to invest in relationships—our spouses, our children, our friends. God made us this way. It’s why we love romantic fiction in the first half of our lives. We’re hoping we get our own real-life hero to marry someday. Growing older, we’ve learned to appreciate the close friend who understands “girl-stuff” since our husbands, as much as they love us, don’t get it.
When we read novels based on women’s friendships, they encourage us that evergreen friends do exist. These are the friends where we may live miles apart, but it’s easy to pick up where we left off no matter how long it’s been since the last visit or phone call. These are the friendships that crack under life’s storms and then heal, the bond renewed and stronger than ever. And these are the friendships you’ll find in my Cracked Quartet Series, four women, still close after thirty years.
The inspiration for the series came from my own life experience with my college roommates. In real life, we didn’t name ourselves The Cracked Quartet until we’d hit middle age, but the name stuck with me, and the fictional series was born. Meet four fictional ladies who live almost as close to my heart as the friends I’ve known for over fifty years!
Book One, The Song Awakens came out last year, and I’m closing in on the finish to Book Two, The Song Alights.
Fanny, Winnie, Chloe, and Gabbi weren’t always close geographically, and each have lived different experiences: a missionary, a stay-at-home mom, an opera singer, and a teacher. Two are married, two are not. One has remained single, one is a widow. At times they’ve misunderstood one another, but they’ve always had each other’s backs. Evergreen friendship.
The Song Awakens features Stefania, also known as Fanny. Thirteen years earlier, Stefania and Joe left their three children with relatives to protect them from disease and unrest in central Africa. At least, that’s what she told everyone. However. Stefania lives with the guilt of one unguarded moment and cannot forgive herself, which leaves her sleepwalking through life. She’s convinced the loss of her children is God’s punishment. Even though she doesn’t deserve it, she longs to reconnect with Colin, Nathan, and Lila. It may be an impossible mission, especially when it comes to her daughter who has made it clear Stefania is not welcome in her life. With the help of the Cracked Quartet’s “Operation Reconciliation,” Stefania gathers courage to reach out to her adult children. But she’ll have to come clean about her past—or she’ll never be free of its burden.
Linda Sammaritan writes stories about real life. She recently published the first of a women’s fiction series, The Song Awakens, Book 1 of The Cracked Quartet. Her YA historical trilogy, World Without Sound, based on her own childhood growing up with her deaf sister in the Vietnam War Era, earned the status of Carol Awards finalist (Dancing in the Silence) and semi-finalist (Reaching Into Silence).
With teaching as her first love, Linda had always figured she’d teach teens and tweens until school authorities presented her with a retirement wheelchair and rolled her out the door. However, God changed those plans when He gave her a growing passion for writing fiction, so she blew goodbye kisses to her students and dedicated her work hours to becoming an author.
A wife, mother of three, and grandmother to eight, Linda regales the youngest grandchildren with “Nona Stories,” tales of her childhood.
Where Linda can be found on the web:
www.facebook.com/lindasammaritan
www.twitter.com/LindaSammaritan