My grandma’s friendship with her closest friend, Helen, began when they were 6 years old in Poland. They reconnected in New York after the war and picked up where they left off.
Helen died about a year before my grandma. In her final months, Helen couldn’t speak. but my grandma would still call Helen and speak to her, knowing that Helen could hear and understand her.
After my grandma died, I jokingly observed to my family and Helen’s sons that my grandma continued to live for 7 years after my grandpa died, but couldn’t make it a year without Helen.
Although it was an attempt at levity (and everyone laughed), there’s always deeper truths in humor.
This is the power of true friendship. It can can sustain us in life.
The Rarest Types of Friends
In life, we cultivate all types of friends. We have “school friends,” “camp friends,” and “work-friends.” There are friends we make through activities and hobbies — gym friends, tennis friends, travel friends, club friends. Eventually, some of those people break through the need for modifiers and become, simply, friends.
We need all types of friends in life. The “loose ties” serve an important purpose. But there is nothing like the friends who’ve known you forever.
The friends who see you as you are — instead of how they wish you would be or project you to be — are in a class of their own.
The friends who see your flaws and faults and love you anyway; the ones who champion you when you need a boost and call you out when you get too ahead of yourself, who remind you of your truth.
These are the people with whom you feel safe to show up as yourself, no matter what’s going on in your life. When you are with these friends you don’t need to perform, pretend, or fake positivity. You can just be who you are and as you are.
The True Magic of Close Friendships
Most of your friends will never fall into this category, and that’s ok.
In fact, it’s by design.
Not every friend is meant to stay in our lives forever, which is what makes the ones that last truly special.
The type of friendship that my grandma and Helen had are few and far between. Many people don’t even live long enough to have a friendship that spans nine decades.
But the magic isn’t in the length of the friendship; it’s in the depth.
When we find people who get us, who allow us to be ourselves, who accept us no matter how we show up, we have struck gold.
Care for those friendships as if you were nurturing a magic flower that will save your life. Because that’s what these friendships are.
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