YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE

Reevaluating My Friendships

During the time my mom was sick, her oldest friend made multiple trips from Massachusetts to Westchester, New York to visit her. It took hours in the car each way and before my mom lost her ability to speak she wondered something to the effect of “Why is she bothering to do this?” It was a similar line of questioning to when she asked me why I had come all the way from California just because she was in the hospital. For all my mother’s intelligence, she routinely undervalued the importance she played in other people’s lives. We were all there because there was nowhere else we could possibly be.

Death dramatically changes people and I’m sure I won’t have a true sense of all the different ways my mom’s passing will impact the course of my life until I’m further out from it. But I have already noticed one significant change and that’s how I view all the relationships in my life. As I’ve written about extensively before, I’ve always had a hard time navigating friendships. I’ve endlessly worried that my friends don’t care about me as much as I care about them. And I’ve felt frustrated that the structure of my friendships aren’t what I’d been taught to expect (i.e. constant communication and the sharing of all life events, both significant and trivial). I assumed I must be doing something wrong because I was the common denominator.

But, since losing my mom—or perhaps more apt—since watching my mom die, my thoughts on the matter have shifted. Going through this horrible experience was an opportunity to see how the people I care about showed up for me. Who checked in via text? Who called? Who came to the funeral/repeatedly said they wished they had been able to come to the funeral? Who had the capacity to care about me the way I have historically cared about them?