Four hundred artisans under one roof. Two great friends with whom to enjoy Winterfair, the biggest art expo in the Midwest. One suite of rooms. Three nights, adjacent to the largest shopping mall in central Ohio with five anchor stores. Laughter, buying, trying on, more laughter, eating, catching up...we were made for this. It is the one time a year that the car trunk just isn't big enough. I drive five hours to meet them; they drive to this capital city after work and we meet for dinner to catch up and begin our weekend.

My two friends and I worked together back in the days. We had the best times then and loved the planning, programming and public relations that went along with our jobs. On paper I was their boss; in reality, we lived a decade of shared responsibilities...they made me look good to my own boss.

Instead of going over the hour by hour, play by play of the long weekend, our semi-annual retreat, I want to reflect on what their friendship, and by extension other friendships, mean.

"We cannot tell the precise moment when a friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, There is at last one drop that makes it run over. So in a series of kindness there is at last one drop that makes the heart run over," someone has penned. When did our friendship begin.

At first our jobs would take us around the country looking at sites at different hospitals. Then, at some point, we decided that since we were all about to celebrate 'decade birthdays' (40, 50 and 60 - you know which decade I was celebrating), a whale watch off Cape Cod was in order. That three-day journey to Massachusetts opened up a wider world to us and found us in Ireland, China, Australia, Greece, Turkey and New Zealand. Oh did we party on those trips...and shop...and sight-see. Looking through albums of those trips is an instant re-vacation and stress reducer, a retreat from the snow and cold of southern Indiana and northern Ohio.

We have celebrated graduations, weddings, birthdays, new homes, children leaving same, all the life markers that have welded us together, including a friends' death.

Understanding that goes beyond words; connectedness that goes beyond distance; friendship that goes beyond time. Bittersweet parting is soon replaced by the anticipation of the next time we'll be together.

It is good to have friends. It is vital. And that's what I think about it.