This weekend was a much needed break from working six or seven days per week, as I had been doing for the last few months. I rented a car and drove the four hours and nineteen minutes to go see my best friend in Redding. Her name is Sam.
Sam is a diabetic. A few years ago she was in a horrible accident – she was hanging out with a group of friends who knew nothing about diabetes. She didn’t have insulin with her and she went into keloid acidosis. She suffered for over an hour, vomiting and just going through an awful series of states. She had a heart attack, a stroke, and went into a coma. These people didn’t know what to do with her and were afraid to bring her to a hospital so they just dropped her off in front of a local deli. When the ambulance arrived, she had already been deprived of oxygen for 24 minutes.
She awoke in the hospital a month later and found that she could not move or speak. The hospital staff didn’t think she would ever improve. But her mother stayed by her side and encouraged her to get better. And she has. Sam can speak, though very quietly, and she can walk with the help of a cane. She can wheel herself in her wheelchair and do simple things like feed herself, brush her hair, do her makeup, etc.
Sam had saved my life before, and she is the one person I know who has never judged me. We’ve been friends since we were fifteen years old. I love her dearly.
So this weekend I went to see her. We had a good time, talking and laughing about things. She is still herself in every way mentally. She can text faster than I can. She is sharp and she still has her sense of humor, which is so important for everyone, really. Her mother cooks amazing food and she treats me like her own daughter – her other daughter, she calls me.
The point of this post is to encourage you, readers, to take the time to check in with the people in your life who need you. Whether you know it or not, you need them too. Relationships like these, that are not based on material possessions or money or status, these are the relationships that matter most. They are the ones that you will learn from, not academically, but about what it is to be human and what it is to relate.
Right now, before you even close this page, pick up the phone or a pen and call or write to someone you could use some real connection right now. Feel free to comment below if you have a similar story to share – I would love to hear it.
