Name five friends who have been there when you needed them.

There have been so many… I think just for fun I’ll limit it to people who read this blog, and I’ll describe the first thing that comes to mind today when I think about that person (which may not be the most significant thing).

First would be R. What popped into my head was the time he taught me to drive a stick shift. We were in college, visiting his family in Small Midwestern Capital City. The thing about me is, I get frustrated easily when there’s something I can’t do well. (And the reader says, Get out!) I was really getting nervous and frustrated because I kept stalling out, and then a car started coming down the deserted road where we were practicing and that really freaked me out. I started crying because I was showing my incompetence in front of this person I really thought the world of, which made me feel stupid because he’d seen me worse off than that, and I felt stupid for crying because what’s the big deal? R just looked at me very kindly and said, “OK, that’s enough for today. Let’s go get a Sno-Bizz.”

ChaplainMom. The quintessential ChaplainMom moment is when we were walking the labyrinth in the backyard of the woman for whom the Divine Miss M is partially named. I call her my Spiritual Mary Poppins because delightful woo-woo things always happened around her. We were on our way into the labyrinth, I was letting CM lead me, and somehow we ended up on the path going out instead. Very ChaplainMom. We got the giggles. Then as we were going back in, Reba the Dog laid down lazily in front of us, totally blocking our path. That did it. We literally collapsed on the ground, laughing under a bright moon for several minutes.

My Mamala. When C was born, Mamala came to stay for a week or so. The day before she was going to leave, I started getting this intense shooting pain in my right side. My hormone-addled brain was convinced it was appendicitis or something worse. (I think it was just a muscle or nerve thing from sitting in a weird nursing position.) I remember wincing at this pain, while R is tending to C who’s got the screamies as well, and Mom saying, “You know I will stay here as long as you need me; I can change my plans.” I don’t think the pain was psychosomatic, but she somehow knew that in that moment I needed to know that I wasn’t alone.

Texas Pastor/Head of Staff That’s My Age. (How’s that for a long pseudonym?) I was just thinking about S the other day—R and I had dinner at La Madeleine, and I remembered that it was ten years ago that she and I had lunch there on a rainy spring Saturday. She probably doesn’t even remember! But I was just starting to feel a call to ministry, which is such a tender time. She was so affirming—gave me lots of book recommendations, including The Preaching Life by BBT, which I went out and bought and started reading that very afternoon on my screen porch as the rain continued to fall. And the rest is history.

California CG. Of all my friends, CCG is probably the most fiercely loyal. We may trade voice mails for weeks trying to catch each other, but she doesn’t give up on me and I am forever grateful. The moment that comes to mind is when she and her husband were separated. I was friends with both of them, and I remember she invited me out to dinner at her house. We had stuffed bell peppers and wine and other great stuff I can’t remember anymore, and she did all that just to tell me how important our friendship was to her and how she wanted it to continue, regardless of what happened with her marriage. It wasn’t an ultimatum conversation—pick him or me—it was just her telling me how important I was to her. I will never forget that.

(The problem with only doing five is that these are the first to come to mind, but there are so many others. CG Auntie, ChicagoRev, Seminary Girlfriend, my siblings, the RevGals, Office Manager, and the list goes on and on.)