I have a friend, one of those real ones that your kid brings over to you on the playground or in front of the school and says, “Here, this is so and so’s Mum, you’ll love her.” There are other real ones, like the girl you met Freshman year in college who is so different from you and yet so alike that you can’t stop listening to her stories and you start using the same soap she does because you want to smell just like her. But more about her, another time.
Anyway, I met this particular friend, as I said, at my son’s school. She has what is called here a double-barreled surname. But, in her case, it’s a quadruple-barreled surname. You know, Eugenia Tibble-Spencer-Blatherington-Smythe, III. I would tell you the actual name but then you’d think her veddy, veddy English and snooty, which she’s not. Not. At. All. Although, to be fair, her voice is elegant, her tones pear-shaped, her skin so like a rose you’d be forgiven for wanting to curtsy. Never mind. If you did wobble into one, she’d just tell you (in a voice that makes you want to stop talking, forever) “Oh, do get up, darling, you make me feel like a fucking idiot.”
This is a woman who wears a hat like nobody else, and an evening gown, and Wellington boots, and an apron that says “Keep Calm and Carry On,” probably all at the same time. She is organized and efficient and completely incapable of letting anyone down. She also radiates light in the most effortless, self-effacing way. She would be extraordinary if that was her whole story. But it is not.
This friend has endured tragedy on an unimaginable scale. I won’t be more specific but try to imagine it anyway: think of the worst loss you can, and multiply it. Then, throw on a wallop of more crap, and then, pitch yourself down a flight of stairs. So, now that I’ve beaten you into a senseless depression, listen to this: She still radiates light. She still makes me laugh so hard I blow tea out my nose. What my friend does, and what has saved her, is this: She takes joy in other people’s joy. She can dip her long, graceful fingers into their happiness and let it spill over her, into her. Her joy in genuine, it is not forced or false. It’s the real deal. It becomes her, is her. She’s like an empath that way. And, as you see your happiness reflected in her, it only intensifies it for you and you can’t believe your great good fortune to have landed in her world. She does all this without making you feel as small as the Who on Horton’s trunk. She makes you feel clever and special and lovely for having a wonderful thing happen to you, because you so deserve it.
My dear friend has an expression when you thank her for something. “Only a pleasure,” she says. Or, if you’re terribly lucky, she graces you with “Pleazh, Treazh.” Pleasure, Treasure. But, really she’s the treasure, and you’re the one blessed with the pleasure of her presence in your life. And you think, just for a moment, that, yes, you do deserve it.