Personal resilience and a tonic called friendship

How do people deal with difficult events that change their lives? Recently a group of old school friends and I were pulled together in response to a personal tragedy. The nature of the tragedy is private to our group, it’s not important to this story because this was no “pity party”, it was a gathering of old friends, a celebration of all we’ve become, mothers, wives, friends, sisters, workers, carers, leaders, socialites, movers, shakers and campaigners.

This group of extraordinary women came together after 30 years of friendship for one reason, to show care and compassion to one of our group but actually, what we didn’t realise is that each and every one of us needed that party. It was not about one person in the end, it was about sharing our lives, the good and the bad; it was about laughter, kindness and fun. 

Don’t get me wrong, the motivation for this gathering was a life changing event, an emotional pain and a sadness, we can’t undo that but what we discovered was amazing personal resilience in our friend and in each other. There have been bumps in the road for us all over the years but we are bound together by our life experiences, by our compassion for each other. 

Taking time out of our busy lives to share our experiences, lifting our heads up, reminiscing, laughing, taking silly selfies and enjoying a bottle or two of bubbly was just the tonic we all needed. This was never a pity party, this was real life; this is a tonic called friendship.