Friendship and Support

 Dear Kids,

Today I want to write you a letter that brings back over 20 years of memories and illustrates so much of what I want you to have when it comes to friendships and support.  

It started with a message I got on WhatsApp - letting me know that a friend's son (who had been diagnosed shortly after Yehudis was) got engaged.  I'm flooded with memories of what we went through during those years.  

Here's a short recap of how it all started.  I heard through the communal grapevine that a family in a city not far from ours was dealing with a brain tumor diagnosis.  These were the days before WhatsApp, social media or any of that stuff.  I wasn't sure if reaching out to them was an invasion of their privacy but I felt that they knew who I was (old camp connection) and I had gotten reach outs from another frum family in Israel when we started and it had helped me so it was worth a try.  I left a message on this woman's voicemail letting her know that I had heard about their diagnosis, I was here as a resource if she wanted or needed the support, and that she did not have to call me back if she didn't want to.  I figured that was my best shot at trying to help.  I got a call back, and it began a friendship which has stayed strong for over 20 years.  When we were in the thick of treatment and the aftermath, we wrote daily "missives" to each other.  Email was our form of communication.  Our letters could fill a book.  We shared our journeys and carried one another through the hardships.  To say I've cried many tears of joy since the news came last night would be fairly accurate.

So why does this constitute a blog post for you guys? I think what my friend and I have is a great way to see the need for a support system.  Our stories are extreme.  I pray you never deal with what we dealt with.  But life has so many ups and downs.  Raising your children takes an inordinate amount of strength.  Growing and evolving as a human being takes work and thought.  You will, G-d willing, have your spouses to support you.  But don't discount the role of building a great support network.  I'm always saying it takes a village, and it does, but within your village you will need one or two key people.  For fear of revealing my love of Grey's Anatomy, I quote Christina - "You’re my person. You will always be my person.”

Those people will change depending on the situation - you won't necessarily have one friend who you go to for every thing. You need a few, but a small few.  Support looks different for different people, but please remember you don't need to go at this life alone.  You have your family, but you always need friends.  You don't need a million likes on a social media post, we're not talking Facebook friends - I'm talking about the real kind, who you can share the deepest struggles with and never feel judged.  People who understand you and understand what you are about and what you are going through.

If I could only teach you two things about friendship - it would be to be a loyal friend to someone and to let someone in. I think the second is the hardest thing of all.  

You might have an occasion where you let someone in and they let you down.  Try not to be too harsh on them - they are human.  But also remember that friendships do change and evolve and if you can't keep them in your inner circle, that's ok.  Different friendships are for different times.

If you're lucky enough, as I have been, to have more than one friend in your life that you can say is your person, you will have a very rich life indeed.