It was not Christmas, it was not even wintertime, when the event occurred that for me threw sudden new light on the ancient angel tale. It was a glorious spring morning and we were walking, my wife and I, through the newly budded birches and maples near Ballardvale, Massachusetts.

With one low gong the old Seth Thomas struck 12:30 a.m. I love clocks, especially that one—a humpback mantle from the late 1800s. But hearing it at this hour was just another reminder that I was still awake. My mind raced with worries: The economy, my wife’s health… Lord, help me sleep, I asked.

I thought about my first clock. During the Vietnam War, I was stationed at Finthen Army Airfield in Germany. On a weekend leave, I stopped in a quaint clock shop. One grandfather clock, amid hundreds, caught my eye. Unadorned. Plain brass face. Curved case of dark wood. I was inexplicably drawn to it. When I was discharged, I used every last penny I had to bring it home.

Over the years I added an antique-shop treasure, a rescue from an old apartment, a grandmother clock from an auction. I learned how to make repairs and restorations. Each clock had a different personality, a different need.

Ding! The cherry schoolhouse clock struck 2 a.m. Then all the clocks rang the hour. I’d timed them that way. But the early 1900s Gilbert missed a beat. I plodded down the hall. Within a minute I had it working again. The Lord is this way, I thought. He knows what troubles us and what we need. So why worry?

I went back to bed and drifted off to the steady ticks of my clocks. Each one a reminder of God’s personal care.

Two things are always in short supply when you are a college student: sleep and money with which to go home. Margarete was away at college, a hardworking, diligent college sophomore. The Christmas holidays were soon approaching, which meant a trip home was almost in sight. But as always, college professors haven’t much heart and usually schedule tests during the last three or four days preceding vacation, so sleep was hard to come by.

Grandma Hendley had sent the funds for Margarete’s long bus ride home. As soon as the last class was over, Margarete made her way to the bus depot loaded down with packages and a few presents. She quickly purchased her ticket and boarded the bus.

She was thankful that her first choice in seats was available–the very last seat next to the back door–where she could stretch out and sleep without interruption all the way to her destination of Mankato, Minnesota. Stretching out with no one to bother her with questions or break into her sleep felt like such a luxury.

The only sounds that filled the bus were the quiet murmurs of other passengers and the steady hum of the tires on the highway. Such were the comforting, soothing sounds that lulled a tired college sophomore to sleep. As she slept, the motion of the bus and her tossing pushed her shoulders against the back door.

Suddenly, without warning, the back emergency exit door swung open with Margarete wedged against it! Her head and shoulders hung out the open door–awakening her instantly–and she felt herself falling into the blackness of the night toward the hard concrete of the highway.

Her first thought was, I’m going to die! She frantically grabbed for the door frame to catch herself but missed! She prayed the most fervent prayer of her short life in just three words: “Jesus, help me!” And to this day, she says she can almost still feel it: a pair of huge hands caught her and pushed her back into the bus.

She quickly looked around, but no one was sitting near enough to her to have touched her. When the warning light of the open door flashed red, the driver brought the bus to a quick stop and came running down the aisle. Stopping short, he took in the sight of Margarete sitting next to the open door and leaned down to ask her, “Are you all right?

I can’t understand how it happened. Did you lose anything? Are you afraid? Did you get hurt?”

As you can imagine, he was more than a bit upset with the problem. Still in a sort of shock, Margarete answered, “No sir, no problems.” “Well, then, how did you manage to hold on and not fall out?” She replied, “I believe I had some heavenly help.”

Happy framed faces filled the silver tray on my baby grand piano. Over four decades of friendships were immortalized there. There was Sonja eating fried chicken at a potluck. Barbie giggling at her computer. Carole and me on vacation in North Carolina.

All these women were gone now. I lost Sonja to a heart attack, Barbie to cancer, Carole to Alzheimer’s. Even my beloved dog, Spanky, had recently succumbed to pancreatitis.

Every friendship ends, I thought. Then my eye fell on another photo—my best friend, Sue. She was 19 years older than I was. Older than most of the friends I had already lost. I had to prepare myself for the inevitable. But the truth was, I honestly didn’t think I could survive it.

A car honked outside. A group of us girls were taking a trip to Clarksburg for the day. I’d hoped the trip would take my mind off my sadness, but the thought of getting in a van with Sue filled me with dread.

“All aboard,” my friend Debbie called when I climbed in the front seat. “Have a macadamia nut cookie,” said Jeanne from the seat behind us, passing a baker’s box and filling the van with a buttery aroma.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. Sue was all the way in the back of the van. I’d barely looked at her when I got in.

“How did you and Roberta meet?” Tresa in the backseat asked Sue.

“I’ve known her since she was in pigtails,” she said. “Roberta is like the daughter I never had.”

“Friendship must be strong with roots that deep,” Tresa marveled.

I remembered the first time I saw Sue, blonde and pretty as a movie star behind the piano at our little Baptist church. “I pestered my mother to let me sit by myself right by the piano,” I said before I realized I was speaking. “I watched her hands move over the keys and tried to copy on my wool plaid skirt.”

“A very short skirt, if I recall!” Sue cut in, and set the others to laughing. “And I can’t count all the times I had to give her a pinch for passing notes during the services!”

“A pinch always followed by an affectionate pat,” I reminded her.

The memory set my mind wandering further. Sue comforting me when my mother was injured. Sue encouraging me with my nursing studies. Sue welcoming me into her house for dinner when I’d spent all the money I earned selling Avon on textbooks and had nothing to eat.

Don’t think about those times, I told myself. Don’t think about Sue.

Thankfully the conversation moved on to something safer: antiques. “The first antique I ever bought was a washstand—” I started. Too late I remembered that day. Of course Sue had been with me.

“I admit I pushed her to get it,” she said. “I told her, honey, a washstand is the most versatile piece of furniture you’ll ever own. It can be an end table, a nightstand, a kitchen island, even a vanity.”

“It’s still in my house. Right next to the grandfather clock,” I said. One day it would be another reminder of a friend I’d loved and lost.

After that day I stopped accepting invitations to go out if I knew Sue would be there. I kept our phone calls to superficial small talk. No old memories. Nothing to remind me of the fear that was with me all the time now. The fear of losing Sue.

“I miss you,” Sue told me before we hung up one day in late fall.

“I miss you too,” I said. I did miss Sue, more than she could ever know. But I would miss her even more when I lost her for good. Best to guard my heart now to avoid more pain in the future.

December rolled around. I drove my car down to the mailbox on my country road one morning. A heavy, square white envelope was waiting for me. I was so curious I tore it open right there in my car. It was a friendship journal from Sue.

I opened the red and green cover. “Roberta, I’m so thankful to have a friend like you,” the inscription said. “So I have recorded some of our good times together in this book.”

I turned page after page in Sue’s careful handwriting. “Who would have thought we would ever be friends with our age difference?” she wrote. “I never would have dreamed you’d become so dear and special to me. But I’m so glad you did!”

I was blessed to have Sue, I thought. Every one of these memories was a blessing. On the final page the publisher had printed a Bible verse from Proverbs: “A friend loveth at all times.” Sue was my best friend, but I hadn’t been loving her at all. I’d just been fearing her.

I grabbed my cell phone and punched in her number. By the time she answered I was in tears. “I got the book, Sue,” I said. “I didn’t mean for us to drift apart. I was just so afraid I had to distance myself from everyone—especially you.”

“Did you read what I wrote at the end of the book?” she asked.

I flipped to the page where Sue had inscribed, “I’m so grateful for all the days we have traveled together. May God continue to bless our friendship in the seasons ahead.”

God had blessed all our days together, from the very first day we met. I didn’t know how many seasons Sue and I had together on this earth. But I never had to worry about losing her love. Or she, mine.

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