Support, salvation, transformation, life: this is what women give to one another when they are true friends, soul friends, what the Irish call anam cara. It’s what the Wrinklies did for one another, what the French resistance fighters in Auschwitz did for one another, what women do for one another in real relationships with real consequences in real time, every day, what my friends do for me. We help one another other live and sometimes, we watch – and help – one another die. It happens in movies, sure, but it also happens every day, in real life – now, tomorrow, yesterday. It is transformative and transcendent. It is real. It is love.

~ Emily Rapp, “Transformation and Transcendence: The Power of Female Friendship.”

My mother died on January 6. My father killed himself in 2010.

I am an orphan who never quite had parents in a traditional sense, anyway. I thought the day when I would write those words would be far into a future I can’t imagine. The days, the news, the grief came instead, back to back.

Maybe if I stayed busy, I figured, I could find myself back to words. Funny, sharp ones. Beautiful ones worthy of my single mother, with all her flaws & mischief & vivacious laughter. But then people would talk to me & I could not hear them, or something that would have once moved me to tears left a throbbing knot behind my heart.

The one person who called me her best friend in the whole world was gone now. She would not be calling again. I would have to talk to her by looking at the stars, wiping her presence from the tears on my cheeks while I meditated. I would have to listen for her in the wind.

I am deeply terrified by sadness & its weight. I love happiness, the shape of it, the generosity of it. This is mom’s fault. She had a relentless optimism & zest that sometimes wore me out. But when her death became real to me, it somehow solidified my father’s suicide, too. I suddenly needed retreat from a world that was spinning forward without me.

Books. Water. Tea. Dirt. Plants. Sleep.

Maybe if I had found love, like my mother wanted so desperately for me, maybe this winter would have been less cold. This was my first thought. I was only kind of alone before but now…

I do not want for love. My sister is a superhero of grace, strength & humor. From East and West, Canada to Florida, the condolences swept in via social media & angels in the form of new friends. They coaxed tears from my numb spirit. They reminded me of what love really means. These women, locally & nationally, made me spaghetti & fed me red wine. They bought me flowers & poems & thoughts & hugs that I wrapped around me like a cover for whatever sadness will rise and fall, like these Austin temperatures.

So, when I read Emily Rapp’s essay about the power of female friendship, I thought of them, their faces & gestures flashing in my mind like a slideshow. Too many to name, so many to thank. She reminded me, like the flowers that arrived on my doorstep from two dear friends, that some people think if you are single, you are alienated & cranky and missing out:

The Wrinklies weren’t spinsters or old maids and they were not “failures” in any way. They were free. It was I who failed to see them, until later, for who they really were: educated, hugely intelligent, fascinating, financially independent. Women who led rich lives full of meaningful work, deep and lasting friendship, sex when they wanted it, time with the beloved children of their family and friends, conversations about politics and art and literature, culture, travel to remarkable destinations where they did not journey as unconscious tourists but as guests in people’s homes and hearts. Despite these full lives they owned their own time, they owned their days. I did not. I was too busy trying to find someone who would spend the days with me, as if this would validate my presence in the world.

I recommend the whole piece. It’s quite beautiful & it was right on time for me.