Friends Always For One Circle Of Women, Staying Connected Is A Necessity

We think of our friendships now as a miracle. Our young friendships had once, without our realizing it, dwindled away. They came quite close to dying.

It was inevitable; we were all so wrapped up in our husbands and children. We’d moved - some to distant places. We might send a birth announcement or a brief Christmas card. But more often we did nothing. We were so involved with other preschool mothers of our children’s friends.

Then we became close again. Many times closer than before. We’ve tried to figure it out and we’ve decided it must have begun when we were in our early 60s. We’d stopped moving; now we all live on or near the Pacific Coast. We were no longer as involved with our own families, even if two of us had second marriages and one of these a second family.

We’re a tiny network, and this is how it works: One calls and says her daughter has a new prestigious job, that she, herself, just had some surgery, that her brother died or that her son just got married. The listening friend then makes sure that, in some way, the others hear this news. And so it goes.

My husband once asked me, rather plaintively, “Why do you have so many friends and I don’t?” I said, succinctly, “I work at it!” George Jean Nathan was right when he wrote: “Love demands infinitely less than friendship.”

Because it is work. It’s a lot of work. And it never stops. For example, one of us tries to help monitor another’s diabetes. One of us makes a point of calling another, who really needs these calls, every other day. One comes from out of state to visit another, whenever she can. She then acts like a protective and caring big sister. Because I’m the only one who likes to write letters, I’m constantly “broadcasting” the news. The good and bad news. Then the others respond in different ways, always working to keep our small circle intact.

What makes these friends closer than others and what keeps us so close? We’ve talked about this and, in essence, these are the answers we’ve found. We’re not critical of each other and are, in fact, incredibly tolerant. We’re more sentimental now. We know each other so well, the good and the bad. And, perhaps, these words explain it best of all: “So many pieces of one’s life disappear as we age, so we value all the more the pieces that are left.”

Some of us share college memories. Some the teen-age years. One became my good friend when we were 12 years old. Some 65 years ago! All of us remember things like nights we had no dates and sat giggling, sighing and eating banana sundaes. We remember each other’s broken hearts. We remember we confided in each other and vicariously lived the adventures of the other. (We had not yet learned that reticence is a quality to be courted).

Then, how did it happen that fast? Our children were gone. We were grandmothers. We had time; sometimes even too much time. And it’s then we instinctively and compulsively reached out to draw the circle close. Laughter was and is a big part of it. Although youth is traditionally the age of laughter, we laugh much more now than we did then. We may be cynical and a bit disillusioned. We may be tired and have bodies that hurt where they seldom did then. But, as the years have passed, we’ve all discovered that a good deal of the time, life is funny and maybe ourselves most of all.

We are now, just as we were all those years ago, completely different. Different religions, different politics, different life styles. But why would we care? Differences are what keep life fascinating. And not one of us could be small enough to let the differences matter.

We honestly love each other. And as love is bound to be, there’s some pain in it as well as lots of joy. The pain is more noticeable now that we’re all in our late 70s. It’s subtle and hidden but it’s always there; for we’re each aware one of us will die in the next few years. What will we feel when the first of us dies? Loss, of course. Sadness, too. But, maybe, even more than those things, there will be the first small death of the young girl who still lives inside each of us.

Our circle will be broken, and we’ll have to work even harder to keep ourselves close. Because, frankly, we’re more important to each other than many of our family members. Envy and jealousy are apt to be present, even if hidden, in most family relationships. We’ve neither of these, because there’s no competition among us. We need each other and we know it.

Shirley Michaelsen, the only one of our circle who is trained and knowledgeable about women and their needs, wrote this to me: “It’s irrefutable that today’s world is extremely difficult and full of never-ending traumas. Honest and close friendships are absolutely necessary for women if they are going to successfully survive. Without these friendships, which provide safety nets for them, they can’t possibly have good and fulfilling lives.”

How could anyone say it better?