Recently a friend of mine lost her mother. Since I was not experienced at comforting people with their lost, I didn’t quite know what else to say to her but “I’m sorry for your lost…”. In my struggle to say something right, she began to tell me about her mother. She has this incredible ability to articulate how she struggled to accept the fact that her mother is gone! Talking to her, I found more inspiration from her, than I could do anything to inspire her.
With sincere opening up of herself, I felt safe and was pulled to open myself up to her, and talked to her about my own mother. How my mom has suffered from cancer, and has recently endured a rigorous six months of chemotherapy, and is now finally on her way to recovery. Even though she is recovering, we (our family and doctors) don’t know for sure how long she has to live. But we’re hopeful, faithful, and are trying to live everyday to our fullest, as not to waste a single moment left together.
Automatically, my friend, jumped in and like a mother, instructed me to value the people around me, and show special care to the ones I love most. She said – it doesn’t matter how much time our love ones have left, if we love them, we must show that we love them. She pushed harder, saying - write her often, call her often, send her pictures of yourself in your daily activities, and let her know how you felt about her while growing up. She emphasized that I must make the effort to show love and affection to the ones I love in such away, that when they’re gone, I will have no regret. So that I will not be telling myself, “I wish I had….”
Suddenly, I felt like I have two mothers. One at home hundreds of miles away, and one sitting right in front of me. And it strikes me how often God has brought strangers into my life, and made them like family members to me. I have one family and one family only! And people around me, no matter how close, are never a “replacement” for a mother, father, brother, or sister figure. And I don’t look for that. Yet, the friends I come in contact with, at various moments in times, become a new form of family for me.
I’m sure we all have someone like these in our lives. They’re friends who care so much about us, who open themselves up to us, and make us feel safe enough to open ourselves up to them. They respect us, for who we are, who we were, and who we will become. They respect our dreams and visions, our space and time, and they never want to make us less of who we are. It is with such love, that we sometimes automatically see a family member in them.
I am no psychologist, nor do I have theories to explain such phenomena of life. I can simply say that friends are a gift of God. They make us into better people, without taking anything away from us. Eventually, they will become like family to us. They respond to our lives similarly to how our family respond to us: instantaneously without reservation or selfishness; only full of love and sacrifice.
I am sure we can all think of people in our lives who have been there for us, in all our circumstances of life. Let us value the beautiful gifts friendship and family. And let us treasure the people in our lives by showing and telling them at all times, how much they mean to us. We have family, and we have friends. Neither can replace the other, but some friends will become for us a special gift from God, to challenge us, to guide us, and to accompany us on our life journey. And we give thanks always for their presence in our lives.
-Nathaniel Nguyen-