Queen of Dreams Radio
Posts Tagged ‘Friendship’
About 12 years ago, I met my friend Stephanie. She was a marketing director at a large accounting firm in Reno, Nevada. I was a marketing director at a large accounting firm in Dallas, Texas.
She called one day and we chatted about marketing, but soon grew to be fast friends.
Nine years later, she was my maid of honor, seven years later, I was her matron of honor, along the way…we had Chance, she and her husband, Troy, had Samantha.
We have only physically seen each other six or seven times. But, still the connection today is as strong as it ever was.
I thought about her briefly last night before falling to sleep. This morning she emailed me to tell me about her writing adventures. Ah, still living parallel lives… and in addition to Stephanie, I have many, many other parallel sisters!
We all do… sisters and brothers… all living with us.
Isn’t it divine?
P.S. She just emailed me back and is ALSO playing the Queen… Queen Mommy complete with princess outfit!
THIS dress is amazing… totally queeny!
As all of you know, I’m cleaning out emails by the tons of KBs (more like MBs), and I’ve come across so really amazing emails. It seems a shame to throw them out! So I thought I would start a new category called Juicy Bytes and will share them with you! 
Not sure how this will work, but I’m sure it will all be splendid!
I sent this email to a woman who sent out a question over a listserv – sorry I don’t have the original email, but here’s my response to her question about ‘gift ideas’ for a friend going through cancer. This exchange occurred in January 2008 – too many good vibes to go to the delete button for sure!
Hi -
One of my dearest friends had breast cancer a few years ago. She had a pair of ruby red slippers she wore her last day at chemo. She wore them out… like Dorothy clicking her heels and going home.
Since then, we’ve celebrated milestones. I don’t know if everyone is the same, but with my friend, the ‘date’ on the calendar each year is one where she is reminded because of oncologist follow-ups. So, on her one-year anniversary, I sent her two glass shamrocks from Red Envelope because we were feeling so “lucky” to have her with us and to express gratitude that she is alive and well. On another year (her anniversary is close to St. Patrick’s Day), there was another four leaf clover kit.
For your friend, it is going to be close to Valentine’s Day, so maybe something having to do with hearts and being heart to heart with her. Then you can have that special heart connection with her upcoming milestones.
What I found from listening to my friend is that it is the little things that meant so much. A yummy dinner dropped off when she didn’t feel like cooking, little cards sent here and there to keep her spirits up, a visit to drink tea – just to be together. I believe it is most about what your friend cherishes. My friend cherishes human connection above all things, so these are mini celebrations of who we are.
As I type this, I am reminded of all the crazy things we did during her cancer journey. We twirled around in circles in the Starbucks parking lot and let balloons go with our wishes attached. We took a day off to pamper ourselves together. Another day we just window shopped and ate and talked and talked. Another day we curled up at her house sipping tea and making plans for the future – our future together.
I was not one of the ‘inside’ team for my friend. She had many others who had gone through chemo who were there for her to show her the ropes on wigs, medicine, etc. I was there to be supportive and to hold the faith. I believe we all come with our ‘home team’ – each with our perfect role. Maybe your gift can be reflective of who you are for your friend. Or maybe it can be something that will help her feel more like herself – a housekeeper for a month if she’s feeling behind on housekeeping, a day at the spa for renewal, etc.
Best to you and your friend. We’ll be celebrating her recovery! I’m sure you will find the perfect gift to celebrate her life!
Hugs-
Tina
Here’s her response to my email:
Dear Tina,
Thank you So much for such a thoughtful and endearing email. I read it over several times, not just for the ideas you suggested, but for the warmth and understanding you portray.
I completely agree that is the little things in life that allow people to realize how lucky they are to have such caring friends/family, etc. It has been that exact human connection which has strengthened my girlfriend, and myself.
After having her first chemo session, I realized it would be nice to stop by the hospital during her next one and keep her company for a while. She loved the idea, and asked that I bring her lunch and we could act as though we were having lunch out together. I did, and this became a ritual for each of the next sessions. It helped her pass the time, and it helped ‘us’ to reinforce our already committed friendship.
With your terrific ideas, and those of others, I narrowed my gift list to a ‘pamper me’ event such as a massage/facial, a housekeeper, monogrammed slippers (which I saw on Red Envelope), a lovely cancer awareness bracelet (made by a woman, to order, with proceeds going to the ACS). But-in the end, I think I am going with this-I am having dinner with her and 2 other friends this week. I plan to bring my camera and have someone take a picture of the 2 of us. I will take that picture and buy a beautiful frame and give it to her as a sign of what our friendship means to me.
Thanks again, Tina, for such a lovely email.
Wow, I feel like this is a permanent term in my vocabulary! A friend wrote a great sales book and included this idea in it – we all need traveling companions!
To me, I feel like all the messengers are traveling companions as are the earthly messengers – everyone is helping us travel to our destination. Yep, that means EVERYONE. The lady who hurt your feelings at the store, the guy who was grumpy at the gas station, the child who won’t mind, the partner who isn’t listening… EVERYONE is playing a part in your good.
When I share this with clients, sometimes the feeling is LESS THAN GOOD. Like WHAT? And, skipping all of the political stories, the illnesses and such, it really is true. Each hurt, each devastation, each experience is wooing you back to who you really are.
I remember that three years ago, I was fighting for my ego. My ego was going down, but I had no clue what that meant. I felt sad, I felt lost, I felt betrayed by the beautiful messengers who have been with me nearly non-stop since birth. I was mad – really mad.
In the middle of this desert, one of my dearest friends called. She was in the middle of a challenge herself. She was 42 and pregnant with her third child. She went to the doctor that morning and was told that her child was going to be brain dead. That his cranium wasn’t forming and, frankly, his brain was ‘leaking’ out the front of the non-formed skull.
She was so scared. This is a woman I know as fearless and her fear took my breath away. She is one of the people who have taught me more about faith, and here she was asking me to pray that he would simply go straight to God.
Immediately my desert landscape vanished and I heard a voice… “Will you help her?”
I thought to myself…what the heck can I do? I don’t know anything!
But there was something about the energy that accompanied that voice – something that I trusted. Something that beckoned me forward. My friend was one of the only people besides Mark that knew about what I was being shown from Spirit. I had been shown how the body looks in its energetic form.
I told my friend that I would pray for the very best for all involved – her, the baby, her family, and God. Whatever will be will be.
That night, I went to pray and meditate and was taken to ‘see’ her baby. I saw his disfigured face. It took my breath away. I felt scared. I thought I’m not made for this. I can’t do this. Why have you brought me here? You need someone who is more courageous than I am. But as I stared at this little baby who looked more like an alien than a boy, I began to see bits of skull floating around his face, and bit by bit I saw them build his forehead. And as I thought of how much I loved my friend and how scared she felt, I prayed to know what to do or how to help.
At the time, I really didn’t ‘know’ if I was making this stuff up or if it was real. I didn’t ‘know’ what to ‘believe.’ It just seemed too Twilight Zone. And, why me? I mean, seriously, at the time I thought anyone would have been a better choice – anyone.
I talked to my friend and she had another appointment a few days later with another specialist. The scans confirmed that the front part was definitely better, and the second doctor couldn’t seem to figure out why the first doctor thought it was so bad.
Encouraged that maybe ‘something’ had happened, I went to Spirit again and again for another seven days. Each day, I would see new healing take place. One day they continued working on his tiny skull, the next day they worked on his brain matter – electrically energizing it with blue light – it literally looked like Frankenstein when the switch gets flipped, the next day they began working on his heart and on and on it went.
Each day I would report back to my friend, and when I said something about the heart, she was so surprised because she had not even mentioned it – they said he would need an immediate heart surgery when he was born.
This was the beginning of January, and mid-March, a month before her due date, my friend went to the hospital in labor and before her husband could even get the car parked, she had had our little ‘lucky boy’ who was born on St. Patrick’s Day. He was whole and did not need a heart transplant. He has been written up in medical journals.
Some ask… is he completely healed? As in… the expectation of a ‘healing success’ is a 100% perfect baby. And the truth is that he is delayed – slower than normal, and completely perfect in all he is.
At the time, I too, believed that only 100% perfect was good and acceptable. Our world seems to only value what looks perfect, what appears to be perfect. I have always been results-oriented… and thought if you can heal the skull, why not put him at perfect?
I asked ‘why’ he wasn’t healed. I was told that this soul agreed to be a reminder (for now, as I have seen visions of him in high school at a podium giving a speech) of what is important for this family. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but shared it with my friend. She said she knew exactly what it meant. He had given her ‘permission’ to slow down. She said with her other children, she never took as much time to just ‘be’ and to drink in who they are. This baby taught her patience, and to enjoy a slower pace, and he also taught her how to ask for help. Her fearless, warrior spirit was so independent, never needing anyone – always helping everyone. Now she was the one who needed help. This lucky boy made it much easier to ask and to learn how to receive.
And, she said, he is a beautiful reminder to the other family members and that he holds so much peace for other people – that they respond to him in a way that is magical. Beyond that, this little guy has been an amazing teacher for the medical doctors too – amazing them with his recovery, astounding them with his resilience, and delighting them with his spirit.
Most people I know who have been through something devastating will tell you it was really, really hard. And those who were able to receive the gift in it will tell you that they wouldn’t change a thing. Some may think this is positive thinking, but I really believe that God is always teaching us every step of the way in life. And, He always provides us with wonderful, amazing traveling companions that can help lighten our load along the way if we will allow them to.
