Friends

Nurture friends who will invite you over for toast.

My friend Alison sent me a text mid-morning on a Saturday in February, inviting me over for toast. She included a picture of a bowl of Seville oranges, “waiting to be made into marmalade.”

We all need a friend who will invite us for toast and marmalade, impromptu on a Saturday morning.

In the third year of widowhood, there has been — of course — a gradual shifting away of some friends who walked with us closely in the early months. That makes perfect sense. I’ve done the exact same thing, journeying closely with someone in a crisis and then naturally retreating when they are back on their own two feet. It is also true sometimes, that one big loss leads to smaller losses in the world of friendships.

And I have also pulled away at times. I realized that the loveliest of small groups was not the right place for me. It was all couples and although I tried I could not get over or through the sadness it evoked in me, not just yet.

It is okay. It is normal. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

In some cases even deeper bonds were forged — or in the case of old friends, safely secured forever — in those early months, a kind of knowing sped up by circumstances. A car-crash course in friendship. These are my guts, spilled on the floor. I see you brought a mop and a bucket.

Etc.

And now, you are still here. And there are lots of brand new things for us to talk about.

I’m also trying to make new friends, without appearing needy or nutty. The other day at pickleball, “Novice Social Play,” I met warm and funny Sue. I enjoyed passing the time with her against the wall as we waited to play.

“My husband died a couple of years ago,” she told me, as we shared why two nerds would be at the gym.

“I’m a widow too!” We laughed a bit hysterically, and exchanged phone numbers.

Over the years, I’ve had the same kind of grade-one-style, ‘Want to be my friend?’ moment with other pastor’s wives. The odder the circumstance the faster the friend? This is a good thing and not to be discounted.

Friendships are plants in a pot. We figure out what they need through time and experience. Water African violets from the bottom up. Lillies are hardier than we think. A pretty pot never hurt anyone.

Sometimes we over water or create famine conditions, but it’s amazing what can be brought back to life with intention and attention.

I know more about potted plants than ever because I inherited a house full when my friend Fawna moved from Toronto to New Brunswick. We packed up my car with some of her little green friends she didn’t want to leave behind to a who-knows-what kind-of future. Happily, although nervously, I stepped in.

I have committed myself to their care, first because she cared so much, and now because I do.

Just this week, I had a new-ish friend over for a drink. It is my neighbour, newly widowed, and whom I gently hover around in the driveway, just enough I hope and not too much.

After emergency vacuuming, I picked up (yet again) “Dog Show: poems,” a collection by Billy Collins given to me by my friend Deborah. They are sweet poems about the friendship between a person and their dog. I’m going to call them marmalade poems, because they are jam but with an edge.

I sat in the light of my evening living room. I waited for my friend and read delicious poetry given to me by another. Plants prefer proximity for mutual support, or so I read somewhere along the way. They were grouped nearby, together on a low table. I imagine them saying, “Here she comes now!”

I felt known and knowing. Alone but not completely.