There is a picture of an angel hanging in my kitchen. It is a folksy piece with a stylized angel holding a bird and the words, "A friend will carry you when your wings forget how to fly."

It is one of those things bought on an impulse because it is attractive and over time it comes to have meaning. When the picture went up on the wall a few years ago, it simply filled a blank space. Today, after arriving home from a wedding shower for our bride-to-be it caught my eye. What would I --- or any of us --- do without our friends?

Life is complicated and the complications come when we least expect them. Friends, willing to listen, willing to withhold judgment, are the ones who get us through so many of the sometimes serious and sometimes mundane complications we encounter.

A few days ago a friend called to inquire about the state of my wardrobe for the wedding, now only two weeks away. "Do you have your dress?" she asked. I explained how busy things had been and that the next day was set aside for dress shopping. "Good," she replied, "I will come with you."

As I stood in the middle of the fancy dress department of a store far from the local shopping mall, feeling bewildered and a bit overwhelmed, my friend went to work. As I rather reluctantly picked up a couple of dresses and headed for the dressing room, she followed urging me to try her choice.

Ten minutes later we were finished. The dress was paid for, packaged and we were off to the shoe department. A task that surely would have taken all day and probably most of the next if attempted alone was complete. What would I have done without her help? She did not remind me time was running out and I had better hurry up. She did not roll her eyes and shake her head. She merely offered to come along and gently directed the decision-making.

This morning I telephoned the hostess of the bridal shower. She was calm and cheerful despite news that the weather was heading into the hottest day of the year category, not at all what she had in mind when planning the party in her back garden. She is a very busy woman, a high school teacher and campus minister with four children of her own, yet she was gathering together friends and family of the bride with grace and elegance for a traditional pre-wedding party and never once letting the stress that she certainly felt be known. Her serene, reassuring attitude came through even over the telephone and for that I was grateful.

Looking around at the guests at the bridal shower later in the day, I had to thank God for the gift of friends. They are there when the times are good, as for celebrating upcoming weddings and when times are bad when there is illness, trouble with children or any of the other curves life seems to throw us.

Like most families planning a wedding, pressure builds as the day approaches. There are times when the bride and /or her mother simply feel they cannot connect all the details to create the celebration as planned. It is usually a temporary slow-down but it is wearisome and overwhelming. Wedding planning is supposed to be happy and carefree, or at least that is what the magazines tell us. So when things do not proceed quite as happy and carefree as anticipated it is the good friend who steps in and calmly restores order.

Friends require care. We need to be nice to them, appreciate them and the things they do for us and we need to never take them for granted. It is ironic that we teach our children to share and be kind and be good friends but sometimes we forget to follow our own advice.

Looking back on the births of children, baptisms, first Communions and confirmations, birthdays and anniversaries and the illness and the deaths that have occurred, it is touching to remember the goodness of friends who in the midst of their busy lives take time to help and to celebrate with us.

Looking forward to weddings, graduations, and even more birthdays and anniversaries, the hope is to remember to be there as much as possible for the friends that have been so loyal.

Anne Hansen is a parent education consultant and a parishioner at Blessed Junípero Serra Church, Camarillo. Her e-mail address is familymail@aol.com.