Squad.

This is dedicated to My Squad.

You know who you are.

We didn’t grow up together. We look different. You have kids older than me and none at all.

I am your child.

Some of us are white and some are black. We are different ages, generations even, formed by a multitude of life experiences.

We sound so different.

Some of us but not all of us live in the same places. We come from all over the place but our stories speak the same truth.

We have different gifts and we pursue different paths. None of us go to the same church but we share a common faith.

We like some of the same things and do our own things.

Our histories are different, but we all share some history together. We forged a steel bond during some formative period in our lives.

I call you when you’re far away, when I want to be seen but feel invisible because no one who is physically close is close enough to notice I’m distant.

I text you when my thoughts are too far out in front of me, when I want to feel heard but can’t hear myself think and when I need to find my voice.

We don’t have a coffee or girls-night-out kind of friendship. Our friendship, My Squad, is more severe than that.

We have the kind of friendship where I lend you a child when the days have been too strong and the space too small for me and my people.

We have the kind of friendship where we share out loud the words we say when the doors to the outside world are closed.

We have the kind of friendship where the tears are hot when they fall, the questions hard, the answers few.

Some of you are newer to My Squad than others. We’ve been intentional about sharing life recently.

It’s hard to make new friends in our middle-years, but I’ve needed you and you’ve needed me, too.

We help one another by knowing the other is Out There, doing life. This solidarity gives us comfort on our sometimes parallel journeys.

Some of my Squad is original. We have the kind of friendship where I see you in pictures with my loved ones across all the years and miles we’ve shared - births, marriages, deaths, and all the marking days in between.

You welcome me into your home and I feed you at my table. I watch you and learn, and I try to make my house a place for soft-landings like you’ve shown me.

I come to your table for grace and encouragement and you serve me heaps of it.

We hold hands when we pray.

My Squad is a collection of souls, hunters and defenders of all the good and worthy things.

You are protectors from the things that prey and a shield against the wounds that pierce.

You are brave and vulnerable, a pride of humble warriors seeking the victory of peace and, for invaluable moments, quietude.

You are wise with your words and are powerful in your silence.

You are close when you are far away.

You are strong when I seem weak.

You are fierce when I need a force and gentle when I need to be one.

You are my Squad. Forged by being Out There.

The world nees your kind of Squad in our community today.

I am forever grateful for mine.