When my little sister started kindergarten, my mum and a group of other ‘mums*’ got together for a coffee. Or a cup of tea. Whatever old people** did back in the mid 80s for fun. Over weeks, months and then years, they continued to meet for drinks/lunch/dinner/whatevs, inviting other friends along the way. Some came regularly, some rarely, but by the time my mum died in early 2022, that particular group of friends (known colloquially as ‘The Kaleen Mums’) had been going strong for almost forty years.
****
Since we took our first steps into parenthood, we have relied heavily on our friendship circle for support. Neither of us live physically close to family members so the daily minutiae of real life has been bolstered by friends from the very beginning. For almost 14 years now, it has been friends that we have depended on as last minute babysitters, picked up groceries, or who soothed toddlers with skinned knees and black eyes who swore black and blue ‘I can do it’ before gravity proved them wrong, while you cried noisy tears of relief into the shoulders of another.
It is friends that have swooped in to pick up sick children when we’re away with work and can’t get back straight away. Friends who have dropped over sleeping bags for school camps, visited us to deliver books and treats for ailing children. It is friends that have left cocktails and biscuits on our doorstep during pandemic lockdowns and it is friends that have taken photos of our children when they unexpectedly get an award at assembly and they listen endlessly to the myriad of monologues on each of the passions that your children embrace as they hurtle towards adulthood at a speed which is terrifying. It is friends that hand out hugs and gentle words/profanity when life goes to shit and who bring the wine and cheese to the front door when it’s time to celebrate.
Friendships have been front and centre over the last couple of years as my children have navigated their way from primary school into high school. I have seen their friendship circles widening and diversifying. My chest has ached as they left behind friendships which were so crucial to their younger selves as they headed off into different schools and different interests. I have delighted in the new with them, the giddy excitement of finding people that get you (like really get you), the tumultuous to-ing and fro-ing of old friendships stretching to accommodate their new, longer legged, edgier and more vulnerable selves.
The thing is, friendship is always front and centre. For tweens, teens and adults of all ages.
Khalil Gibran writes in one poem:
Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance
between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond
of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from
one cup.
It’s a poem about marriage.
And love.
But I think in the spaces and movements and filled cups and talk of love, it speaks very much of friendships.
Friendships are so very rarely because we are ‘the same’. They are about shared experiences, memories and values. They are about love, and support. Friendships are full of grace. So very full of grace. Friends are people who believe in you, who are kind to you, who laugh with you. And at you. They are hold you accountable, without judgement. They also judge you very much about who you choose as your hall pass, what reality TV you watch and your reverse parking skills.
I would also like to drop in here that some of my friends are also very, very wrong about the Barbie movie.
Friendship is never about perfection. We are generally kinder to our friends than we are to ourselves. Friends know so very, very, very much about us and kind of nothing at all. And they love us because of what they know. In spite of what they know. And with a keen interest in getting the rest of it out of you at some point.
Tonight, I will join one group of my friends, and I will be surrounded by strong, supportive, and very tired women. We will drink wine and chat about the week that was, talk about our children, (potentially***) grumble about our partners, laugh at inappropriate tik-toks, wonder how our friend is going on her trip to her homeland and generally put the world to rights.
And yes, we will be very aware of the privilege we have to be able to do those things safely in a world where so many are unsafe.
We will return to our home with full hearts, a lighter step and what feels like less worries, pour ourselves into PJs and slump onto the couch with our families watching TV and vowing that next week we will definitely be (and do) all the things we just told our friends over that third glass of wine.
We won’t. But they won’t care.
So, on what would have been my mum’s 78th birthday, when I am surrounded by my merry bunch of ‘just mums’, I will be raising a glass to the OGs – The Kaleen Mums – the group of friends that loved my Mum through decades of adulting, children, marriage, highs, lows, and all the rest.
You were the glorious, generous, beautiful circle of love that let her be all the versions of herself she needed to be.
To all of mum’s friends. (And to all of mine. Who let ME be all the versions of myself I need to be)
Slainte! Salud! L’Chaim! Prost! Cin Cin! Cheers!
Yes yes….
* I know they were more than ‘mums’ but I was a child and like all children I generally only knew who people were in relation to other children. This is why I knew people like “Kate’s Mum” and “Cate with a C’s mum” who would probably have been friends with “Katie’s Mum who has blonde hair not Katie’s Mum that drives the red car”
** When you are ten everybody is an old person.
*** Undoubtedly. Sorry husband of mine but even perfect partners can be annoying.