When you become seriously ill, you can learn very quickly who disappears when things get rough. Not everyone has a support system, and many people have to go through illness largely alone. Not everyone has a spouse, an adult child, a close friend, or family nearby who can step in when help is needed.
But something else can happen when you become ill. You also learn who stays when it matters. Sometimes, you even discover people you never expected to become important parts of your life. I truly believe that God, or the Universe, sometimes brings people into our lives just when we need them most.
I live alone, and I have no family nearby. I had just moved to a new state when I became so ill that I could no longer work, so I hadn’t even had time to make friends or build much of a support system. Then cancer struck. Then severe radiation damage almost took me. A few years later, cancer struck again. And all the while, my illness progressed.
A neighbor I met the day I moved in gradually became my backup person. He checked on me every day to make sure I was okay and to see if I needed anything. He helped with things I couldn’t do myself. He drove me to doctor’s appointments when an Uber didn’t show up, and he took me when I was having a procedure under anesthesia that required someone to stay and drive me home afterward. He took me to the ER several times, picked up prescriptions when I was too sick to get them myself, and even picked up groceries when I needed them.
His wife did something for me that I’ll never forget. On my 60th birthday, I wasn’t doing well. My cancer had returned, and I wasn’t well enough to be around people. I couldn’t eat, so a birthday cake wouldn’t have worked. I couldn’t drink, so wine was out of the question. I couldn’t safely have people come inside to celebrate with me. A 60th birthday celebration takes on more of a meaning when you were told at age 59 that you had less than 6 months to live!
So, she planned a birthday parade. My neighbors decorated their cars and trucks and drove past my house. Some dropped off gifts, while others had made huge cards and signs wishing me a happy birthday and telling me they were thinking of me. I sat in a lawn chair in my driveway, wrapped in a blanket, and watched everyone stream by. Another neighbor even filmed the parade with his drone so I’d have a video of it.
A few days later, I left for months of aggressive treatment because my cancer had metastasized. During some of the hardest days of that treatment, memories of that birthday parade stayed with me.
Then there was the receptionist at a church I’d only attended a few times. She thought of me when the church was giving out Thanksgiving food gift cards. Even after she retired, we stayed in touch, and over time we developed a friendship that continues to mean the world to me. When I need a ride to the cancer center, or sometimes just a day out of the house, she’s there. When I was homebound or in the hospital, she’d come to visit.
Once, the hospital sent me home before I was really able to care for myself. I had some help during the day, but the nights were agonizing. She came to my house and slept in the guest room at night so I wouldn’t be alone and would have someone there if I needed help. I’m truly not sure how I would have gotten through that time without her.
My best friend lives more than 500 miles away, but she’s also been one of my greatest sources of support, especially during all the hospitalizations and the long periods when I was medically homebound.
We weren’t the kind of friends who spent every weekend together or went on girls’ trips. We started as work colleagues. After nine years of working together and being friends, I had been to her house exactly once, and she’d been inside mine exactly once. Our big social tradition was going to a steak restaurant once a year for each other’s birthdays. But when I became seriously ill, none of that mattered, and everything changed.
During my many hospitalizations and the long stretches when I couldn’t leave home, she called me every single day. There were days when I’d hear her voice and immediately start crying, and sometimes we barely said anything at all. I think now about how hard those calls must have been for her, too, but she kept making them anyway.
When things became very bad and the hospital had essentially written me off and was waiting for me to die, she realized that I didn’t have anyone there advocating for me. From more than 500 miles away, she called the hospital and made them listen to her, no matter how many times they tried to brush her off.
One thing I’ll never forget happened when things were especially bleak and I’d been told there was nothing more that could be done. She found a private pilot who flew her down just so she could spend an afternoon with me. If that isn’t friendship, I don’t know what is.
It would be very easy for me to focus on the people who disappeared when my life became difficult, the ones who made excuses, the ones who gradually faded away, or the ones who simply went silent. But I don’t want them to be the most important part of this story.
I’d rather focus on the people who stepped up when they didn’t have to. I want to remember the people who checked on me, drove me places, brought me groceries, sat nearby while I underwent procedures, slept in my guest room when I couldn’t safely be alone, organized a birthday parade when I couldn’t have a birthday party, called me every day from 500 miles away, fought for me when I couldn’t fight for myself, and even got on a little airplane just to spend a few hours with me when we both thought those hours might be among our last together.
Serious illness does sometimes show you who disappears when life gets hard, but it can also show you, in ways you may never forget, who stays.