You might say that everything we know about friendship is learned in childhood. Friendship comes naturally then; you have many friends, and you know who they are. If you’re lucky, you even have a best friend.
Children Holding Hands, by Olga Inoue
You can choose only one best friend. They must choose you in return. If it’s not reciprocal, it’s not real: best friendship is a promise friends make to each other.
Your best friend is part of your identity. Your best friend’s friends become your friends too, and this is the group you belong to – the people you talk like, look like, and act like.
Simply having a best friend is like currency in the schoolyard. You might not be friends with everyone, but as long as you’re best friends with someone, you’re worthy of friendship. That buys you a place in the school community.
Kids know this by instinct – it doesn’t need to be taught. Adult friendships aren’t as simple. Sometimes it helps to have an example, and like most kids, I learned from my parents.
They were Christian church-goers who made an effort to socialize and tried not to discriminate. They were open to friendship with anyone. It didn’t surprise me, then, that my mother made friends with Maria Bustamante.
The Bustamantes were Mexican. Not only were they “from away,” they were from an entirely different culture. In a place where it was rare to have a neighbour from another part of the province, they were quite unique.
What made them different, more than anything, was that they spoke Spanish at home. This was something I witnessed first-hand whenever my mother left me for Mrs. Bustamante to babysit. Amid a stream of rolling Rs and purring Vs directed at her own children were slow pools of English meant for my brother and me. Though I understood her perfectly, I’d never heard anyone speak my mother tongue with an accent before. Her words sounded so strange that I wondered if they still meant the same thing.
My mother had many friends, but I sensed there was something in the level of trust and caring between my mother and Maria that set this relationship apart. They looked after each others’ children. They spent time together on weekends and holidays. In my child mind, there was only one way to describe it: Maria was my mother’s best friend.
Perhaps the best example I’ve ever had is from a time when I was living in small-town New Brunswick. I was a teenager then, and could appreciate the challenge of grown-up friendships.
At one point, our church needed to find a new minister. This isn’t an easy task – it’s filling a job where the hiring party consists of an entire congregation. When the selection was finally made, it was not unanimous.
The new minister Robert and his wife Lenora were newcomers to our area. They were a little older than my parents and had no children. Robert was blind, so he used a seeing-eye dog in church. They were both quite traditional. I had the impression they encouraged a return to basic values, which I found refreshing in our somewhat affluent community.
Their first year was difficult. Certain members of the congregation felt that Robert’s type of ministry wasn’t what the church needed, and wanted change. I don’t know if or how the controversy related to his blindness, but being different in any way doesn’t make it easier to fit in. There was tension during the Sunday service and a quick exit by a number of those in attendance when it was finished.
I watched bewildered as the congregation dwindled and division took hold in our church. My mother confirmed that yes, there was a problem. But it was a church matter, and a career matter for Robert. It was never a personal issue for her or my father. It had nothing to do with their friendship with Robert and Lenora.
Certainly there were others who showed kindness to the new minister and his wife. After all, this was a community of people striving to live the Christian way. My father wasn’t the only deacon to linger in solidarity at the receiving line after the sermon, my mother not the only visitor to the rectory during the week. But even I understood that in the adult world of courtesies and politics, the simplest gesture of friendship can be tinged with other intentions.
This much I know is true: It was to our house the minister and his wife came for dinner on Christmas Day that year, and again at Easter. It was our family they belonged to when belonging meant everything. It was my parents’ friendship they chose to reciprocate in this way.
Certain aspects of the way we live – the language we speak at home, our lifestyle, the way we see the world – are so fundamental to our experience that it’s only natural for us to seek membership in a community of people who live the same way. But we’re people first; this, too, is community. For some, it’s the only one available. My mother knew this.
I’ve learned by example that real friendship is as essential to a sense of belonging for adults as it is for children. It’s an offer of measurable social value, but never donation. It’s a commitment – one that accords status and may preclude other social ties. Even if we no longer seek the best friendships of childhood, the need for friendship is rooted in the very same place: an identity, within a community, that represents who we are, who we love, and what we stand for.