Tag: friendship

Garden Party

Chairs were spread out in a semi-circle under the pine trees. There was a selection of wine, beer, and water bottles on the back porch. At the other end of the table was a platter with potato chips and some sort of dip. People milled about, drinking their beer and chatting. I didn’t know any of them, but many of them seemed to know each other. At age 50, I appeared to be one of the youngest people there.

I had been invited to this gathering of gardeners in the little village within the city in which I live. It’s more than a neighborhood – more like a collection of neighborhoods. We are holding a garden tour this fall, and if you have more than two daffodils in your yard, you got invited to this meeting.

Eventually, we settled down and held the meeting. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about. It was what happened afterward.

It feels anti-climactic, honestly, but we all hung around, chatting and learning about each other after the meeting was over. Then, when everything was put away, and it was clearly time to go, we did the parking lot hangout. You know – that thing where you stand in the parking lot and are reluctant to leave because you are having such an enjoyable time and don’t want it to end, so you lean against the car and keep talking.

Honestly, after the last few years, just that felt remarkable. Meeting new people with which you have something – anything – in common.

There is a joke that goes to the effect that nobody wants to talk about Jesus’ biggest miracle – that he was in his 30s and had 12 close friends. That hits closer than I want to admit.

I mean, I have friends. I even have close friends. People I click with on a cellular level. But most of them live elsewhere. A wonderful aspect of this current technological age is that I am incredibly close to people I no longer live in close proximity to.

But local friends are harder. I mean, on one level, this makes sense. If I have the entire online world to pull from, that is a wider pool to choose from than just my village is. I can pick and choose more selectively, tailor my interests, and find people with whom I have many levels of overlap, rather than just “We live within 2 miles of each other, and both grow roses.”

But is that amount of overlap enough? Before the Internet, when you moved away, you just lost people. They were gone, and then you made new friends in the new town. But now, you can keep your old friends forever.

Meeting new people has been hard the last few years. I 100 percent do not recommend moving to a new city just before a global pandemic happens. In retrospect, that was poor planning on my part. Even discounting the pandemic, meeting new friends seems drought with peril in these politically divided times.

The other day I met a new person, and we sort of clicked. In the parking lot, I crawled their Facebook feed, making sure they don’t support things I have spent my life working against. The relief I felt when I saw their Black Lives Matter post was palpable.

Another guy I know isn’t on Facebook at all. He told me it’s easier for him to like people when he doesn’t know much about their beliefs. I get what he’s saying, but I’m just not interested in having friends with whom I have to hide parts of who I am.

It’s complicated. And lonely.

I don’t know if any of these people at the garden party today will eventually become my friends. I sort of hope so. But even if they don’t, tonight felt nice all the same.

Grief Groceries

Hi Hugh,

A friend died, and I want to be helpful to his wife, but I’m not sure what to do. I told her that if she needed anything to let me know. Of course, she thanked me, but it’s been a few days now and she hasn’t asked for anything. I don’t think she will. I feel so helpless. What should I do?

[Redacted]

Hey there, [Redacted]. Thanks for writing. I’m really glad your friend has you in her life.

I get it. Grief is a funny thing. It’s the time in our life when we most need help, and also the time when asking for help is so hard. Not because we are ashamed to ask for help, although that happens sometimes too. But mostly because our brain just sort of shuts down.

When my Dad died, I looked functional. But I wasn’t OK. Not at all. And when the news got out, the ton of people flooding me with calls, texts, and DM’s was overwhelming. I really couldn’t function. I sat on the swing in our yard and just stared into space. People called and asked what they could do to help. I had no idea.

“Well, anything you need at all, let me know, OK?”

“OK”.

They hung up. I stared into space some more.

I had no idea what to do. What I needed. I didn’t even know what to ask for.

Then a friend sent a text. This friend had met Dad once but didn’t really know him. But still, she knew I was hurting. I saw who it was and almost put the phone down without reading the text, but I saw the message and it stopped me:

Will you be home at 8:30 tonight?

What’s weird is this friend lives 12 hours away from me.

Yes, I replied.

“K.”

10 minutes later, she said, “Instacart will be there at 8:30. Open the door for them.”

“What?”

“Grief Groceries.”

When Instacart showed up, they put two large bags of groceries on my porch. Frozen pizzas. Ice cream. Oreo cookies. Tinned soup. Stouffer’s lasagna. A gallon of milk. Like that. Things I could heat up if I needed a meal, or pig out on if I needed fat and sugar. Sometimes, you just need to eat half a box of Oreos.

Notice she didn’t ask if I needed any food. I would have said no. She just asked if I would be home.

Grief groceries.

Another friend, who lives out of town, asked Renee to name a restaurant near our house where we like to eat. There is a local chain near our house that is sort of a deli. When we eat supper there, we spend about $25. Renee told her the name of the place.

An hour later, there was a gift card in my inbox for $250. Yes, that is a lot of money, and I understand not everyone can do that. But the wonderful thing was that because it was enough for multiple meals, we didn’t try to save it for “the right time”. We ate there that night, and take out from there several times a week for the next month on nights when I just didn’t have the spoons to cook.

Both of those gift-givers knew something I didn’t know – that when you are grieving, you don’t want to make decisions. No, that’s not quite it: You can’t make decisions. You hit decision fatigue really fast.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, don’t ask grieving people to make big choices or decisions. “How can I help” is a big choice. But “Can I take the kids this afternoon so you can have some time to yourself” is a much smaller one. “Will you be home tonight?” is a small choice. “What restaurant do you like” is a small decision. Just showing up to cut their grass because you noticed it needed cutting is loads better than asking, “Do you want me to cut the grass?” Or, “I’m going to Target. What can I get you while I’m there?” is better than “Can I run any errands for you?”

It won’t always be like this. If you stick around, eventually they will surface and ways to be helpful will make themselves known. But in the first few days, especially, it helps to remove as many decisions from their plate as possible.

Take care,

HH

Note: I wrote this several years ago now, in the aftermath of my father’s death. I needed to write it – grief shared is always lessened. It means a lot to me that it has resonated with so many people. If you want to thank me, you can buy me a cup of coffee, or share it from this site with a friend. – HH

State Your Needs

While in Raleigh last week, a friend asked me to join Marco Polo, so we could send each other video messages. And because this friend is important to me, I did.

And since then, she has sent me three messages, and I had sent her one that basically said, “I am trying this thing out”. So this morning she sent me a message that said, and I’m paraphrasing, “I read all your blog posts, and I do that because you are important to me and that is how you prefer to share what’s going on. This is how I prefer to share what’s going on with me, and I hope that matters to you.”

Typing it out, that sounds harsh. But it’s true. This matters to her – to me, not so much. But it’s how she feels loved, and she matters to me, so I will do it, and find ways to make it a habit.

This is the same friend that revolutionized my life one day years ago, when I was complaining about a work relationship that wasn’t working out, and she told me that it was my fault my needs were not being met, because I wasn’t communicating them to the other person – I just sort of expected them to understand what I needed from them.

“State your needs, Hugh!”.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But I often find it really hard. And that is what my friend was doing this morning – stating her needs. The honesty was refreshing. I have come to love it when people tell me how to love them, even if I sometimes struggle to do it myself.

Ever since Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages came into prominence years ago, the idea of love languages has been in the popular vernacular. The idea behind the book is that different people have different ways that they feel love and express love, and if you don’t understand that, then your partner may not feel loved, despite your trying really hard.

Chapman’s model is primarily based in romantic love, and has five “languages”: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. So, if you show love by physical touch, and your partner feels loved by acts of service, she is pissed you don’t do anything around the house but want to cuddle all the time. Meanwhile, you are feeling like she is nagging you and distant.

I want to say up front that Chapman comes from an Evangelical Christian background, and while he is a pretty easy read, you should probably know that if you engage his work. But this isn’t really about his book, but rather the concept behind it: That different people feel and show love in different ways.

I believe this to be true, and would extend the concept beyond romantic love. Today, in response to one of my Facebook posts, a friend said that cooking for people was her love language. It’s one of mine, too. I feel loved when people read and engage things I write, or when someone really listens to me and I feel like they are paying attention to me. I show love by giving you books, cooking you a meal, and fixing your dishwasher.

I have another friend who loves to send text messages. I really don’t. But because he is important to me, we text regularly. And he is far away, and so I can’t fix his dishwasher. But even if I can’t show him love in a way that moves me right now, I can do things in a way that move him.

So I don’t know what your love language is, but I know you have one. Maybe it’s, “Share TikTok videos” or “Make me spaghetti”. Or maybe it’s “Help me do chores” or “Listen to me nonjudgmentally when I’m down”.

I know this all may seem somewhat self-evident, but as a pastor, I cannot tell you how many relationships I have seen fall apart because the people involved don’t know how to love each other. Let the people you are in relationship with know how to love you.

And state your needs.