There’s a special place in heaven for that unique person who knows how to be a good friend. And if you are very lucky, you will meet one of these rare individuals at some point in your life. I have been extremely lucky—because I’ve truly met more than one of these people. Sometimes you don’t recognize them right off, but as time goes on, and they are always there for you—ready to talk, go out for coffee or a bite to eat, or walk with you through a tough time, the realization that you’ve met a true friend will roll through you, leaving a path of warmth and a smile in its wake.
I have a friend like that. Her name is Gladys, but we all called her Glad. When I took a new job with a hospital far away from my family and friends, she was the first person who stopped to talk to me. She was the first person who made an effort to get to know me outside of work. She was the first person I would regularly drop in on and talk to during the work day. She was a lot of firsts for me, and continued to be for almost nineteen years.
Glad and I were different. Frankly, aside from working at the same place, we didn’t seem to have a lot in common. She was a nurse administrator and manager; I worked in the finance department. She spent her days working with patient care and patient safety issues; I spent mine with numbers and graphs. She was a practicing Catholic, and very proud of her Italian ancestry. I’m an occasional Presbyterian, with a background best described as “pure mutt”, and not a lot of interest in the old country, even if I knew exactly where that may have been. She never married; I was a divorced, single Mom raising a daughter on my own. I guess if you were looking for common background and interests as reasons for our friendship, you’d find pretty slim pickings.
But what we shared wasn’t in our upbringing, career choice, or even life decisions. We shared an outlook. Glad was independent and strong, and didn’t have a lot of patience with people who refused to accept responsibility for their own life. She was fine with her decisions and with her life whether or not it fit the mold of “married-with-kids-and-house-in-acceptable-part-of-town”. She made me realize it was OK to be me, the way I am. Fitting a mold wasn’t our problem, but the personal, and sometimes pretty strange, expectations of other people. We didn’t have to meet anyone’s expectations for our personal life or choices.
Glad taught me a lot of things. She taught me the value of reaching out and keeping in touch with friends and family. She taught me the importance of making the effort, even if it takes multiple tries. I listened to her stories, and took them to heart. I try to remember to call my own siblings, and did initiate the annual “kids trip” where we all get together, spend time together, no matter what effort it takes to find a meeting place. Glad also inspired in me the drive to stop talking about it and get up the nerve to travel abroad—and the first place I went was Italy. It was every bit as wonderful as she had always described it. And I’ve been traveling ever since. Aside from my own trips, one of my greatest pleasures was to sit on Glad’s couch and go through all the photo albums of her travels, and listen to her great stories. Glad had hundreds of stories of all the places she’d been, people she met—and plans for where she would be going next.
But most of all, Glad showed me the real value of courage. No matter what happens, you deal with it, and you put one foot in front of the other and keep going. You don’t march in place. You don’t whine. You keep going, because if you don’t—marching in place and whining is all you will ever have, and life offers so much more than that.
Glad did that when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She stood up straight and tall, squarely faced the situation, took the treatments and just kept going. She did the same thing when, 20 years later, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She assessed the situation, took the treatments and just kept going. But this time, and as much as we all hated what was happening, that cancer was stronger than she was. She faced that realization with the same quiet courage she applied to everything in her life. After dealing with it for two, long years, she very reluctantly decided that she had finally had enough. With her two, very best friends by her side, and her beloved family nearby, she quietly slipped away on a Thursday afternoon.
I know she has better places to go, and lots of things to do. I know she is having joyful reunions with family and friends she hasn’t seen in many years. I know she isn’t in pain any longer, and is healthy and happy again. But I will miss my friend. I will try to be that better person she expects me to be—and to remember that I have the privilege of living in this life that was so hard for her to give up. And I am hoping that she knows, no matter where her new journey takes her, no matter what she will be doing, time and distance will make no difference. I will always be her friend.

I use to work for a hospital.  I’m not a doctor or someone who draws blood from the patients.  I worked in the business office.  But to be honest about it, I didn’t seem to have much in common with the other managers in finance.  Strangely enough, I found most  (not all—but most) of my friends in the patient services departments—specifically in nursing.

I love my nursing friends, really I do.  But as the saying goes- they certainly are a breed unto themselves.   Many years ago, I remember reading a response that Dear Abbey wrote to some person who was having a life issue.  I don’t remember the name of the person who had the problem, or even what the problem was that prompted Dear Abbey’s response.   But I certainly remember that response.  She said: the number one reason nurses leave the profession, are other nurses.  Seriously, she really said that.  In print.  And if you ask any nurse about that response, he or she will agree with it.  I know.  I’ve asked.

Nurses are unfailingly kind, empathetic  and supportive toward their patients.  But just as unfailingly direct (actually, make that brutally direct) with the rest of us who aren’t sick, or part of the family of someone who is sick.

One of my friends for many, many years proved this out the first time we met.

Shortly after I went to work for the hospital I attended a management staff meeting where I was introduced as a new member of the group.  At the end of the meeting, one of the nursing directors approached me and introduced herself.  I had barely gotten out a “hello” before she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Are you any good at what you do?”.  One type-A certainly knows another when you meet one, so I looked right back at her and said “yes”.  She took me at my word and just nodded and walked off.  Of course, she’s tall, and I’m tall.  I think that helped.  Neither one of us make comments about our shorter friends.  Well.. she doesn’t make comments about it. We’ve been friends for twenty years.

I also went on a 60 mile walk for a cancer charity with a group of nurses.  They were phenomenal—and truly happy to walk for this cause.  After hiking up and down hills, and across 20+ miles of concrete, they would end the day by helping our fellow walkers who had major blisters that needed  medical attention.  I had some of those blisters.  But when I pointed that out, I was handed a needle and some bandages and bluntly told to take care of it myself—while all four of them stood over me and gave me directions. Which I didn’t follow very well because I had my eyes shut.

After performing that little procedure, I knew exactly why I had never become a nurse, but also realized that telling me to do it myself was definitely a sign that I was just one of the group. They all took care of their own blisters, and thought I should do the same. I think they forgot I wasn’t a nurse. At least until they had to give me directions. It became real clear then.  These things just don’t come naturally to normal people. In spite of my  lack of Florence Nightengal tendencies, we’re still all friends.

I’m actually very proud so many of my friends are nurses. Nursing is a closed society.  Nurses usually hang out with other nurses, and  outside the job most of their good friends also tend to be nurses.  Actually, among my nursing friends, I think there are a couple where I might be the only non-clinical type friend that they have.  Maybe I fill their equal opportunity requirement for friends.

Despite their high stress jobs,  surprisingly I actually don’t know any nurses who go to shrinks.  I think that is probably because psychiatrists are doctors.  And I’m pretty sure the last thing a nurse wants to do on her own time is talk to another doctor.  They should get medals for working with a group of people who take intense focus and a high opinion of their intellect to new heights.  Don’t get me wrong.  For some strange reason, I also like doctors.  But as a group—they are missing that “sense of humor” gene.

Of course I understand that no one wants their MD to be some kind of stand-up comic. But nurses have to spend their entire work day interacting with a group of people that you have to explain the punchline of  a joke to. Even the people in finance aren’t that bad.  Between patients, their families and the doctors, lighter moments to break the stress are few and far between for nurses.

Which might explain why they turn on each other. Who else can they talk about and back to?

Still, you have to love them.  I usually follow that comment with-  no idea why you have love them, you just do.  But that isn’t true.  I know why.

It’s my friend who meets me at the gym every week to work on our weight loss program.  We probably haven’t lost 2 pounds between us for the last year, but we have a great time at the gym.  And there isn’t another person I would rather roam around with in the land of great bodies and spandex.  (which, by the way, neither one of us wears!)

It’s my friend who put in a 60 hour week, but still spent one of her precious days off helping me paint rooms in my house.  And didn’t hesitate when I made her approve the colors first—so I could blame someone else if no one liked them.  I think she was onto my motive.

It’s my friend that laughed when I went to her house for a department get-together, and came out of her bathroom asking why the hell she had 10 different kinds of towels in there and not one of them looked like you should actually use it.  She just rolled her eyes when I commented that it must be a “nursing thing”.

It’s my friend who has a very responsible, impressive job, but still looks as bewildered as I feel when we exchange stories about our daughters.  She didn’t know what to do with hers anymore than I knew what to do with mine.  Nice to have company in the I-have-no-idea-what-I’m-doing category despite all our years of higher education.

It’s my friend who loves baseball and has season tickets, and took me to one of the games where we spent the whole time in the bar.  Certainly worked for me.  I think she knew that.  And she still walked around with me even after I bought a sparkly baseball cap.  And wore it.

All of those memories make for great stories, and great friends.  So while nurses may eat their young, and have some sort of secret handshake they use when they encounter another of their kind- you still have to love them.  No question about that.

With Love to All of You!

Vicki