friendship – Laura Nicole Diamond

“That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another’s. We see so much only as we possess.”

These words attributed to Henry David Thoreau came to my e-mail inbox this morning from inspiringquotes.com (let us appreciate the irony of technology delivering Walden‘s champion), with an added interpretation: “It makes sense that what we value in others would already be present in us, be it kindness or courage. Thoreau reminds us that we are our own role models: In surrounding ourselves with people we admire, we realize the kind of people we are.”

This sent my mind to a moment from this weekend’s visit with my son in college. It is fair to say we spent the majority of our waking hours watching football. On Saturday, he brought us — grandma, younger brother, and me — to a place he and his friends like to hang out to watch away games. He made sure we got there early so there would be enough room for everyone. He wanted to be sure that all who arrived would be comfortable and happy.

Which is why when that drunk guy sat down on a bench behind me, his eyes focused on our group, it unnerved him. I didn’t notice the guy, not until he tried to join our conversation with rolling sentences about Prefontaine and the Santa Monica Pier. I am used to coddling oddballs, so I tried to be friendly and dismissive at the same time — that balance of “I do not want to agitate you by ignoring you, but you are not part of this.” My balance was off — too friendly.

The guy stood up and walked two paces closer to us. I did not see him approaching, but my son did. He saw the slurring, wobbling man reach his arm toward his mom and set his hand on my shoulder. And, shazam, he was on his feet, body forward, voice warning: Hey, don’t touch my mom! It was the moment I saw my child transform from bear cub to bear, roaring “intruder beware.” His every nerve ending told him to be my protector. (I maintained that I could have flicked the guy over with my pinky.) I had never seen him confront anyone like that. Ever. He said later that he never had.

Thank goodness he was behind the table.

The next day, one of his friends who had been sitting with us texted my kiddo to say he had not known he could respect him more than he already did, but seeing him defend his family won his even higher admiration. He said he hoped he would do the same in that situation.

What a good friend. Who goes out of their way to praise their buddy’s actions after the fact? How many of us have friends who write to tell us they think we rock? How often do we do that for a friend? To his friend, I offer Thoreau: “That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another’s. We see so much only as we possess.” You would do the same.

It gives me joy to see the kind of friendships my son has cultivated. Like a lot of us, my son suffered his share of jerks in middle and high school. As painful as that can be in the moment, we learn from those experiences what we are willing to accept and what we are not, what caliber of friends we deserve. What I know to be true is that his friend’s generous text reveals the kind of friendship my son offers back, an open-hearted kindness with the confidence to tell another, you are awesome.

As Thoreau would have us do: May we seek out people with virtues we aspire to have. May we surround ourselves with people we admire, and move away from those we do not. May we be our own role models.

Last Passover I thought the Jews might break the internet. I did not yet know that this “Zoom” thing could handle our bandwidth. Miraculously, it could and did. Some fifty relatives waved at each other from our own homes, believing surely we would be together this year.

That was not to pass. Rather than resume our pre-pandemic mass gathering, our familial organism divided into smaller cells spread across counties and states. Even so, I felt a real liberation from the narrow places of last year: for the first time in a year I was sitting with my parents inside their house, eating at their dining room table, maskless, and vaccinated. We chose to open a laptop to Zoom as our rabbi led a Seder from her home and we joined a congregational family of hundreds. She closed the Seder with “Next year in Jerusalem,” and we affirmed, “next year in Tarzana.” Even this felt like a step forward.

More signs of light? For my 2020 birthday, one month into the shutdown, my friend left a very special gift on my porch, rang the doorbell, then hightailed it to the safety of her car.

My birthday month has come around again, and last night we walked to this friend’s house, rang her doorbell and did not back up but stayed on her welcome mat. Five of us went up to the roof in time to see the sunset, and toast how far we have come; the world isn’t talking about where to source toilet paper, but vaccines! Earlier in the day, I had told my son that I sensed a light coming — though I hedged, acknowledging that my feelings could change in a day or an hour. Last night on that roof, with darkness settling over us, Christopher summarized the sentiment of the moment, saying, “I don’t know what comes next.”

We have never known what comes next. The last year has taught us that. I hold at bay the knowledge that anything could happen still, a fourth wave might crash over us and wipe out plans for summer or even fall. And it might not. I focus on the light streaming through my window right this moment, as real as anything.