Feeling the Love

Faina was in good spirits most of the day yesterday and spent hours on the phone electronically travelling about 20,000 miles going transcontinental to Seattle and San Francisco and intercontinental to Holland and Israel. It is great to have a diaspora of friends and even better being able to stay in regular contact with them. It is our friends who have sustained us most through this ordeal. Some a steady presence and others an uncoordinated tag team sending a random email, a card, a book, movie, or CD.

Margo helped me draw this into focus yesterday. She ended a 10 year friendship with a friend who has gone above and beyond proving to utterly "not be there for you." Ordinarily, I would have expected more angst over closing this particular door except that Margo sets this friend in juxtaposition with dozens of caring, nurturing, supportive friends who have risen to the challenge, who call on a five minute break in a busy work day, text message from near and distant points on the globe, come by for a visit, make lunch or dinner plans, or partner up for a workout at the gym.

Yesterday, at mid-day a white van came down the driveway. I assumed it was a delivery from Hopkins, the next week's worth of TPN. I open the door with that expectation and there amid the gloom of a bleak rainy day is an exuberanly cheerful delivery man with a dozen roses. It was from Lesli. For weeks I felt a growing emptyness knowing that we would miss Nate's Bar Mitzvah. We were looking forward to being part of this simcha and throughout Shabbat I imagined the celebration, Friday kiddush, Ayn Kamocha, D'var Torah, aliyoat, closing Haftarah blessing, and evening party. Amazing thing the power of a dozen roses and a well written note. That's a friend.

Later in the day, I had some insurance forms to drop off at Faina's office. Somehow I thought I would just come in, give the forms to Trish, and be out of there in two minutes. Not a chance. Faina has been working with some of these people for 15 years and a few she knew in dental school. She is even in regular contact with some of them, so there is a steady stream of information going back and forth. Still, I could give a first person account and Kathy, Trish, Bach,  Millard, et al. were not going to miss the opportunity to connect. These are friends.

Friends are as vital a nutrient as vitamins A, B, and C. They help you see the world in all its multihued brilliance, fight off our inner demons, and heal from the cuts and bruises that evade our best defenses. One of Columbia's most popular citizens, the Kinderman, sings, "Friends, friends, one, two, three. All my friends are here with me." That about sums up how I feel on this sun drenched morning.