As the end of the year and the holiday season parties, cards, presents, vacations, and so on come upon us, my thoughts occasionally turn to what constitutes a friend.
I have two best
friends. Luckily for me, both of them have two best friends as well - me and the one of my best friends that isn't them. Growing up we lived in three different areas of the greater Denver area. We met as 12-year-old campers at our church's annual girls camp and forged a rather querky (as all the best ones are) friendship over six years of camping trips, youth outings, lunches, sleepovers, shopping trips, and parties. By 18 two of us showed up at BYU, while the third continued her studies in Denver, then in Hungary.
In those early years of college we had everything figured out: friends K and C would both serve LDS missions, K would go directly to graduate school, and C would pursue her career in music, and I would finish college, go to medical school, become a surgeon-super-mommy, and build clinics in Guatemala with my also-doctor husband. Irony struck early and often in the coming years: by age 20 I had left medicine for a music career of my own, and the day I received my mission call, K called to say she was engaged and was putting off graduate school plans. The flip-flopping of lives came full circle when, in the weeks surrounding the beginning of my mission and K's wedding, both C and K's brother underwent life-changing medical emergencies that have made both K and C into medical experts in their own rites over the years of hospitalizations and other treatments that have followed for both families. And to top it all off, I went to grad school and took on the life of the academic musician.
In the seven years since those turning points, I have seen K and C on several occasions - though each meeting has been in a different city, and we still haven't succeeded in getting the three of us together in one place. Other communication has been sporadic at best, and just last week I found myself thinking about them and wondering if what we had still constituted best friends, or if even that notion was a thing of the past.
Then it came: on Christmas Eve I received an email saying that C was back in the hospital, awaiting a second operation, and could we please send our prayers in her behalf. Suddenly everything came back - all the love, the memories, the pure hope for one another - came rushing out from the shelf it had been stored on. Even as my heart burned and tears welled at the news, I was relieved to know no matter who or what else came into our lives, our friendship is as current as it ever has been. And so I send my continued prayers for dearest C, and send an extra word of thanks for the longevity of friendship.
I have two best
friends. Luckily for me, both of them have two best friends as well - me and the one of my best friends that isn't them. Growing up we lived in three different areas of the greater Denver area. We met as 12-year-old campers at our church's annual girls camp and forged a rather querky (as all the best ones are) friendship over six years of camping trips, youth outings, lunches, sleepovers, shopping trips, and parties. By 18 two of us showed up at BYU, while the third continued her studies in Denver, then in Hungary.
In those early years of college we had everything figured out: friends K and C would both serve LDS missions, K would go directly to graduate school, and C would pursue her career in music, and I would finish college, go to medical school, become a surgeon-super-mommy, and build clinics in Guatemala with my also-doctor husband. Irony struck early and often in the coming years: by age 20 I had left medicine for a music career of my own, and the day I received my mission call, K called to say she was engaged and was putting off graduate school plans. The flip-flopping of lives came full circle when, in the weeks surrounding the beginning of my mission and K's wedding, both C and K's brother underwent life-changing medical emergencies that have made both K and C into medical experts in their own rites over the years of hospitalizations and other treatments that have followed for both families. And to top it all off, I went to grad school and took on the life of the academic musician.
In the seven years since those turning points, I have seen K and C on several occasions - though each meeting has been in a different city, and we still haven't succeeded in getting the three of us together in one place. Other communication has been sporadic at best, and just last week I found myself thinking about them and wondering if what we had still constituted best friends, or if even that notion was a thing of the past.
Then it came: on Christmas Eve I received an email saying that C was back in the hospital, awaiting a second operation, and could we please send our prayers in her behalf. Suddenly everything came back - all the love, the memories, the pure hope for one another - came rushing out from the shelf it had been stored on. Even as my heart burned and tears welled at the news, I was relieved to know no matter who or what else came into our lives, our friendship is as current as it ever has been. And so I send my continued prayers for dearest C, and send an extra word of thanks for the longevity of friendship.
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