[The following is a 3 page paper that one of my tutoring students wrote for her English 101 class. She's trying to communicate her ideas to us in her second language. I think it is a great story!]
During my life I have been learning that friendship is when you share your experiences, talk about everything with someone important in your life and express your love for that person in many ways. Until now I did not notice that I have to take care of my relationships. Sometimes there are obstacles in the way that can affect relationships and this is how many problems between friends begin. Generally speaking, in life, when people feel embarrassed from conflicts with each other they want to run away. Sometimes they need help from another to take that big step and resolve what one cannot do on their own. This is an example of how my friend helps me to get over big obstacles, in some conflicts I was having.
I met Sonia couple semesters ago. We have been friends for almost three years. Our relationship is very good. I am proud of her and pleased that I have her as a friend. But not everything is sweet in this life.
Last year Sonia went to Mexico and she stayed there six months. During that semester I made some friends and it was a nice group. She had a good relationship with one of my friends, Luz. She was pregnant and she had her baby three months ago. This is how the problem started. A friend of us named Luz had her baby. She called me after and she sent me a picture of her little boy. Sonia felt bad because Luz did not send her a picture of her baby. The next day, Sonia called and invited me to go to the hospital to visit Luz. I was really busy that day so I told her that I would give her a call back if I had time. My father and my mother took me to the hospital for half an hour, so that I would not have to go the next day.
At night, I chatted with Sonia as I did every day. Then, I told her that I was in the hospital with Luz for a half an hour. She started saying that she waited for my call all day. I did not think that it was a big problem and I ignored all of her words saying that it was not my problem that she did not have a good day. In her words, she said that the people she thought were her friends were not.
In that moment, I shut down my computer because it was not the best moment to talk. I thought that we could talk later. But the later never came. Time passed and we did not talk anymore. She ignored me all the time and I did the same thing. During this time, I went through a lot of emotions. I felt sad because I missed her as a friend. I felt angry for having this trouble with her. But also, I had the hope that we would talk again.
Days later, I was talking to my friend Rosa. She is my coworker and we have good relationship. I told her that Sonia was my friend and how nice our relationship was. Also, in the conversation I told her about the problem we had experienced. She asked me why I did not talk to her. I said, “why me?” She was the one that decided to stop talking. She was the person that has to talk to me to apologize Rosa said, “If you think that Sonia is a good friend then talk to her about what happened. You have nothing to lose”. Rosa’s advice touched me. It seemed that Rosa had knowledge in her words. She told me some similar experiences that she had before.
My birthday was coming and I decided to call Sonia because I wanted her to spend the day with me. I was afraid. The next day, I saw her online. I decided to say “Hi!” She did reply and we have a long conversation about what happened. Also we fixed that problem talking. She accepted that she was the one that made this problem bigger. We both agreed that something that ridiculous we should not end our friendship. Our relationship is more valuable than these little problems which then become bigger and bigger. After that we started talking about what happened with each other during that time. I saw her the next week and we acted as if nothing ever happened.
We are still friends and I feel happy. It does not matter if I was the one that decided to take the first step. The important thing is that everything is fine. Now we know that if we have any kind of problems we had to talk about it in that moment and not to wait because we can lose moments and experiences together. We both learned that friendship cannot end for something absurd. Friendship is built on trust, love, patience and tolerance. In a larger sense, people help to see another person’s problems from a different point of view. They help open each other’s eyes when necessary. Fear, shame, and embarrassment are feeling that sometimes we cannot get over by ourselves, and we need each other. This goes for conflict as well as other problems we face.
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