A definition of true friendship

Recently I wrote a wonderful piece by EnglishMum recently and felt inspired to respond with a post of my own and today I was reading the workshop prompts as set by Josie and she referenced the same post so I thought to myself that this was a sign so here's my take on sisterhood.

I have been blessed this week because someone whom I met when I was going through a very difficult time in my life, has come to stay for a couple of days. I had had prior notice that she might be coming but it was not until I received her text yesterday evening that it became real.

The funny thing was that she arrived to a house in chaos. We had recently received the girls' new bunk beds in the post and my OH had promised to assemble them last night. This was no easy task, it took four hours and A arrived in the middle of it. The mattresses were still in the guest bedroom, there was packaging all over the place and her first words were you should have told me it was inconvenient to which my response was no don't be daft, it will be fine and besides I really wanted to catch up with you. We have not seen each other for 10 months and could easily be that long before we see each other again. She concurred with me by saying that that was exactly what she wanted as well. In the end the girls were up until about 10pm which is an incredibly late night for them. They had a second dinner with us and we all had a Chinese take away because it was just easier.

I was all set to change our plans today because I was keen to spend time with her but she insisted that we kept the girls' original playdate with friends at the splashpark and tagged along. I offered her the opportunity of going shopping but she was keen to spend time with us all and it was lovely. In fact I was so grateful to have her in the car because I was able to leave her watching over my eldest who was fast asleep whilst I nipped into Sainsburys for her school uniform and some sandwiches - there was not enough time to get a picnic together before we left.

I am conscious that as I write this, I am not really defining what sisterhood means to me. It is the ability to reconnect instantaneously with someone without conscious effort. It is picking up the threads of conversations, thoughts and ideas where one left off months or years earlier. It is appreciating everything that the other person is. When I look at my friend, she emanates calm and that may be because she is a highly spiritual person, it may just be her nature. She also has an incredible capacity to give. She realised today that even though the girls were exhausted for different reasons they were going to struggle to sleep so she went upstairs and sat first on the youngest's bed and then on the eldest's bed and patted them to sleep. They loved this unexpected treat and it was so thoughtful because they did need the rest. Other things I value about her is her creative thinking powers, our conversations are always rich and often take unusual twists. I feel that I always have so much to learn from her in terms of her insights into situations.

In short I am grateful that I have her in my life. Such friendships in my experience are rare and I prize them highly. I have not named her because she is a very private person and I respect her wishes to remain anonymous. So what does sisterhood mean to you, what are your experiences of it?