dear friends,
This past week was my dad’s Celebration of Life. The location was an orangerie filled with olive trees and ivy overlooking the Salt Lake valley — thank you, Red Butte Garden. It was both peaceful and full-of-life. Family and friends shared stories from every era of our father’s life (hitchhiking from Ogden to San Francisco in the late 1950s; taking care of our mother during her last years with Alzheimers in the 2010s). There were tears, there was laughter, there was love. In short, it was what my brother and I had hoped it would be.
The only hiccup was that the flight disruptions that plagued the entire globe that weekend meant that my husband and son ended up stranded in Houston for two days. They didn’t make it. It’s not that I was alone: my brother and his family were there, as was my very kind father-in-law. My daughter had flown out with me several days early to help with everything that needed to get done.
Still, I felt sad that half of my family was missing my dad’s final goodbye…
Then, first thing in the morning of the event I got a text from a dear friend, “Chin up, honey … you’ve done tougher and you got this.” And then another one, and another. Each warmed my heart like a hug I didn’t know I needed.
Which got me thinking about friendship: how it makes the best moments in life better and the toughest ones easier. As the grateful recipient of so much caring over this last year of my dad’s life, some magnificent humans have taught me a thing or two about how to be a good friend.
… and they are inspiring me to follow their lead and become a better friend myself.
Here are some of the lessons I’m taking to heart.
(1) Don’t wait to do the kind thing. Life is short and unpredictable. Don’t wait to send the text or the flowers. The kindnesses that touched my heart this past year have come unexpectedly: an open offer of a guest room in case I needed a place to stay during my frequent trips to Utah, the just-because card that brought a smile to my face during a long stretch of bad health news and tough choices, a favorite dinner dropped off at my hotel after a day when I didn’t have time to stop and eat. Looking back, what all these gestures have in common is that the friend didn’t wait for the “right” time, and they certainly didn’t wait for a time that was convenient for them. They simply did the kind thing when they thought of it.
(2) Take on another point of view. The text my friend sent to me the morning of my dad’s life celebration is the perfect example of the power of inhabiting the challenges of another. In just a few brief sentences, she showed me not only that she cared, but that she was thinking about how I must be feeling. That is practicing the art of friendship at the highest level.
(3) Maintain the connection. A few days after I got back to New York, I met some of my writer friends for dinner. One of our number is our resident social director who wrangles us all to get together. Those regular get-togethers matter. If they can be in person, so much the better because IRL hugs are a gift, but if friends are sprinkled across the globe, there are other ways to make sure that connection stays strong. I have a dear friend who moved to Miami years ago. He’s a busy attorney with a very full life and an aging mother to care for. Still, each year on my birthday I get a thoughtful text. And that small gesture means the world.
That’s it for this week. Thank you to all of my wonderful friends who have helped me in ways big and small during the good times and the tough. I hope you’ll join me in leveling up your friendship game, because, really, we all do need a little help from our friends.
warmly,
alison
