The Gift That is Friendship

So I’m visiting my friend who is finally home after months of battling first one illness, then another. And while I’m staying to help out for awhile, her other friends are coming by the apartment in a steady stream, just as they came to the hospitals for all those months. I’m renewing acquaintances with her circle of friends, meeting new people, observing the connections and marveling at this woman and this experience of friendship.

My friend Dale personifies those attributes that make us cherish a relationship with someone else. She is loving and generous, warm and funny. She demonstrates how much she values friendship by being honest, as well as kind. Beyond those traits that draw us inexorably to her, she embraces life with such a vibrant spirit that being with her infuses her friends with its power. Simply put, she has a knack for making each of us feel not just special in her eyes, but so uniquely meaningful that anyone should be able to see and appreciate our merits.

I listen as she greets friends whose calls keep the telephone ringing all day. Her signature opening, “Hey, Darling,” comes up out of her heart with a deep Southern accent (despite many decades of living in the heart of Manhattan). She remembers the names of each caller’s family members and asks about them with genuine concern. She answers their queries about her health concerns with humor and conveys her confidence in a positive outcome then quickly turns the conversation to their lives, their concerns.

I watch as one friend, then another rings the bell and comes into the easy welcome of her home. There are hugs and kisses, laughs and an occasional tear as fond memories are called to mind, and talk turns to friends no longer able to visit in person. Gifts are brought for a birthday to be celebrated yet this month—a book she’s sure to enjoy, a special scented candle, fresh eggs proudly brought from a farm on the island, flowers from a well-tended garden.

And even as they come and bring their gifts, they come to receive the gift that is Dale. It is her spirit that flows in the telling of stories with the dramatic flair and the vocabulary of exaggeration that is her style. It is her laughing self-deprecation, without any hint of lack of self-esteem. She allows us to relax and forget our fears and our flaws. We who have come to comfort are comforted. Her voluminous vocabulary spills through the conversation, a combination of the erudite and the profane that provokes our imaginations, entertaining us lavishly.

The mementos of a rich and full life are all around us as we gather at her bedside to encourage her and be encouraged by her indomitable will to live fully and completely. There are the artworks given her by friends whose talents adorn the walls and shelves. There are the photographs of family and friends, hundreds of images of loved ones related by blood and by shared experience.

In this woman, reveling in the resumption of her home place, is the essence of friendship. One of my father’s wisdoms has come back to me this week as I have watched her. Daddy said one should seek the company of those who allow us to be ourselves and feel good about it. He would approve of this woman who nurtures friends already in her life and makes a new friend of almost everyone who enters her sphere. She banters with friends she’s known for decades. She captivates a visiting health aide who, meeting her for the first time, is so charmed that he “must come back soon.”

One and all, we respond to her authenticity. She is honest and forthright, leaving no question about what she believes and likes, but always open to something new. In the process of being completely herself, she has a gift for reflecting us back to ourselves in our best light much as a brilliant photographer captures her subject’s best side. She opens her true being to us and looks into us to find us as we truly are. This is a friend to be held close to the heart and a friendship to be shared with gratitude and the purest of joys.

And once again this time with this very special friend reminds me of the great fortune I’ve found in friends.  Like others, I have come to comfort and been comforted, graced with the blessing that is knowing Dale.