Happy Galentines Day

The friends I keep are the ones I can cancel on, because a kid-related emergency came up, or I glitched up my calendar, or I’m simply too dang tired to drag myself to one more thing. The one who says “I get it,” even if she’s doesn’t because her husband is still alive or healthy or because — for good reason — her husband is now an ex. She does get part of it, though, because her father died when she was 12, or because her brother suffers from addiction, or because her little sister was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when they were kids. Or simply because she wants to. 

Twenty five years ago, my husband Sam was in a life-threatening car accident. Every doctor who saw him said that it was a miracle he survived. Sam was 31, I was 29, and I didn’t know how to ask for help from the friends who said, sincerely, “Let me know what I can do for you.” My friend Milly didn’t wait for me to ask. Instead, she called me and told me that she was going to the market and would pick up my groceries, too. All I had to do was make the list.

Sam had just gotten out of the hospital. We had rented a wheelchair to get him from the car into the house; his right knee had been shattered and then surgically reconstructed. His right hand and arm had been broken in three places. No surgery required, but his dominant hand would be casted for at least six weeks. The gash above his eye had been sutured in the Emergency Room, but ten days after the accident, blood was still matted in his hair. The hospital staff told me that I would have to get Sam cleaned up at home. A nurse explained how to wash his hair while he was in bed, using a plastic shower curtain wrapped around a beach towel, a basin and a cup measure. It was mere days before Christmas. To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement.

I think my list might have read: coffee, milk, and Advil. I couldn’t think of anything else.

I met Milly at the door and handed her the list. She smiled and said, “This is not everything you need.” At the time, Milly’s three children were in preschool, elementary school, and middle school — she knew how to get things done. She headed into my kitchen. I watched her open the fridge and peer inside. Without turning to look my direction, she asked “Do you like apples?” She made a note on my deficient list. “Do you eat eggs?” Pause. “Turkey?” Pause. “Broccoli?” She looked in my freezer and nodded. She opened a cabinet door. “Peanut butter?” 

On her way out, Milly gave me a hug and said, “I’ve got you. Go take care of your husband.”

An hour later, I heard the front door open and my friend call out, “It’s just me! No need to come out.” At that moment, I was holding Sam’s head in one hand and pouring warm water over his scalp with other, rinsing the shampoo out of his hair. The soapy water flowed over his head, along the rolled up shower curtain, and into the basin at my feet, turning from murky to pale pink to clear. I was surprised and pleased that neither the bed nor the floors were getting soaked in this process. After a minute or two, Milly called out again, “I’m leaving now. Love you!” And the door clicked closed.

I towel dried Sam’s hair, and he settled comfortably against the pillows to rest. I returned the shampoo and the towels to the bathroom and poured the water from the basin into the bathtub. After I had hung the shower curtain over a towel rack to dry — this makeshift arrangement would be the way we washed Sam’s hair for the next few weeks — I padded into the kitchen, expecting to see two or three grocery bags on the counter, ready for me to unpack and put away. Instead, a bottle of Advil sat like a paperweight atop the receipt. I can’t remember now whether she had written “Love you!” on it or simply drawn a heart. Or maybe the hand-drawn heart exists only in my imagination. Oranges and avocados filled a white ceramic bowl on the counter. I opened the refrigerator to find milk, yogurt, and eggs on the shelves, lunchmeat, and sliced Swiss in a drawer, lettuce, carrots, and apples in the crisper, along with the broccoli that I would eat and Sam would not. In the pantry, bread, pasta, marinara sauce, peanut butter, cereal, canned soup, and freshly ground coffee sat on the shelves. 

This is what love looks like when she rolls up her sleeves.

She shows up, with or without snacks, with or without words, with or without mascara. She gets on a plane, or a freeway, or a group text. She stays for a week, stocking my freezer with comfort food, and takes my kids Christmas shopping where they pick out a top that I still wear fifteen years later. And every time I slip it over my head, it wears like a soft hug.

I’ve thought back to Milly’s friendship more times than I can count. I might bug out last minute on a party, when the appetizers are hot and the music going strong. My introverted self might just leave early and crawl into the pages of a novel. But when the chips are down, I’m on my way. Probably with snacks.

There are the friends I’ve lost, of course. I’m like that dark chocolate marzipan in the assorted box of Sees chocolate — a little too intense and not quite sweet enough for everyone’s taste. Plus, some folks are allergic to nuts. There are a few I’ve let go. The one who condemned Sam to hell after he had died by suicide, as though depression wasn’t hell enough for a lifetime. Another who said something irredeemably terrible about grieving kids, or quirky kids, or queer kids, or disabled kids, or neurodivergent kids, or just plain struggling kids. No hard feelings. I’m just going to stay over here with my wild and precious kids.  (The Friends I Keep)

What I have learned over decades of navigating friendships, is that I tend to draw other marzipan people into my orbit, the kinds of friends who show up with an extra latte at an early soccer match, the friends whose eye contact in a PTA meeting sparks a knowing grin, the friend who, when she finds the perfect gift, just sends it, whether or not it’s near a birthday or a holiday. Friends who remember when an in-law is in town and send extra texts, a snarky card, or a Dammit Doll. Or the anonymous friend who, sharing a reverence for Fred Rogers, sends a saint candle with Mr. Rogers’ picture on it. And for whom I, too, will go the literal and metaphorical extra mile to show up on her doorstep with a couple pounds of her favorite dark chocolate nougat — not because chocolate solves any of our problems — but because friends who show up do. 

Somewhere in the course of learning how to be a friend other people, I have also befriended myself. I have learned to notice when I’m lonely and need a conversation, a connection, a laugh, a hug. Or when I’m overwhelmed and need to retreat back into my bed or my book. Whether I need a long hike with a few friends, or to stream a yoga video from my living room, just me and my downward dog. I’m becoming the kind of person who treats herself with the same compassion as she treats her dearest friends. The kind of person my friends can cancel on last minute. I’ll be bummed. I’ll miss them. But I get it. Our friendship will transcend the calendar. We can reschedule. And we will.

Happy Galentines’ Day to the friend I cancel on some days — and count on every day.