What I love about my column is the ability to pick a topic and then totally decide to write about a different topic. Don’t worry, my column entitled, “The Bear Went Over the Mountain with Pedro Alvarez” will appear in my next column. But for this one, I wanted to talk about friends. We all have them. Some have more than others. Some like the friends they have and others pretend. You can think you are being a great friend and then get blindsided by selfishness or stupidity. That is just the way it goes. Life is short, hang on to the relationships that make you feel good about yourself, and lose the toxic ones (as guru Oprah Winfrey will tell you.)
Five and-a-half years ago, my neighbor died when his house exploded. We, on the block, had been smelling gas for weeks. Many of us called the gas company and they would come and say everything was fine. In fact, just four hours before the explosion, I had called PSE&G and they sent some guy who drilled some little holes and said everything was fine. I told him the smell was coming from my neighbor’s house and he told me that he could only go into the house if the neighbor called himself. So just four short hours later, it made two loud “booms” and went up in flames. My neighbor called me at the swim club and I raced home to witness flames shooting so high they were burning the trees. The plume of smoke above the house was frightening. I couldn’t breathe or feel my hands. The EMTs took my vitals, but apparently I didn’t warrant any narcotics (oh, well). And I just kept hoping that my neighbor Richard was out riding his bike and that he would soon turn onto our block, see what had become of his house, and try to rush in and save his beloved cats and original Lionel Train set that he was always trying to sell me.
It was a horrible time. All the “what ifs” that go through your mind; you never want to go there, but you do. And then you realize how grateful you are that your family is safe and that you have friends that care so much about you that they invite you into their homes, since you are not allowed back in yours. You feel so blessed that friends from all over call to make sure you are okay and to reassure that “you didn’t look that fat on TV.”
It took a long time to get over the shock and magnitude of what happened. Few people can really relate to what we went through. My new neighbor, because of the missing house, would totally understand when I would tell her that I heard Richard’s voice asking the contractor why he was putting siding on my house when he just finished putting siding on my house. She didn’t think I was crazy (well, then, anyway, now she knows I am a little unhinged, but we are no longer neighbors so it’s okay).
I bring up this story because friends of ours were there the night of the shooting that recently took place at the Garden State Mall. I did not realize they were there; my first phone call when I saw the report on the news was to make sure my mom wasn’t having an Apple lesson. I was sent a picture of them and when I saw the look on my friend’s face (as her husband, like all men, looked perfectly calm in the picture and he probably didn’t want to go to the mall in the first place so it was her fault anyway…God bless husbands), I saw her fear and her anguish. It brought me back to that day in July when I just could not believe what was happening. I spoke to my friend and I texted her to make sure she was okay. When I went to visit her, without being too emotional, I gave her a hug. She told me that lots of friends called and texted to make sure she was okay. Friends can be good like that.
It would be nice if friends were always like that and not petty and childish. I wanted my friend to know that I was really glad she was still here. I was happy that she and her husband were okay, because when you find a friend you have to cherish them—life could always end with a fire, with a gunshot, with an illness—as the unfortunate possibilities are endless.
I am not the best role model with teaching my kids about friends. That is probably because they have been witness to many of my friendships coming to an end for one reason or another. But I do teach them how important it is to hold on to the relationships that mean a lot to them because good friends are hard to come by. No one is perfect; we all have flaws and we have to be grateful for all of it.
By Banji Latkin Ganchrow
