Comfort Can Always Be Found In A Good Friend

            Imagine a place where you know you can go and feel like this is the best place for you to feel like yourself.  For me this place is the deck on the back of my house, my best friend’s house, and my family’s cabin.  These places make me feel like I can get away from anything and everything that could possibly be bothering me.  I guess you could say these are my places for comfort.  Everyone has places or people that comfort them.  For some it is church, their room, or just something like a counselor or psychiatrist. 

In the novel A Question of Power by Bessie Head, the main character Elizabeth gets comfort mostly from her friend Tom.  Tom is shown as a way of support.  She just seems to be a lot more comfortable when she is around him.  “He had an absentmindedly friendly face with slightly squinty blue eyes and a small mouth which he kept partly open. It made him look permanently surprised. His short-cropped hair stood straight on end” (110), I believe that this quote shows that from the beginning Elizabeth was comfortable around Tom.  The part that stands out to me is that she says he has a friendly face, and that she notices that he looks permanently surprised. 

This quote shows how much Tom cares about people.  “He moved about restlessly, shifted and twisted distractedly, but when a face or word arrested his attention, he caught hold of himself and sat and stared like a quiet, still spider trapped in a corner, looking at life with gently waving feelers.  It must have been the second time he came to eat at her house that she noticed that he was not only rough, carefree, crude.  He had the most beautiful expression of deep wisdom in his eyes, and turned and stared at her like an ancient man.” (122)  The part that stands out the most here is about when he hears a voice and will sit and stare.  This shows that he does care about people and will definitely listen to them if they are having any sort of problem.  This makes me understand how Tom can be a place of comfort for Elizabeth. 

This reminds me of myself finding comfort in my best friend.  No matter if he agrees or disagrees with what I’m thinking, he will always be there to listen.  Tom seems to be the same way, and it is almost impossible to not find comfort in someone like this.