A Good Friendship

I want to try to keep some blogs of warm moments from my day-to-day. Here is one for today!

I was sitting in on a conversation between a pediatrician and his adolescent patient who has autism.

The conversation took place during what's called an "annual physical." Physicals are held to address potentially harmful items, based on a given patient's attributes, in which one can intervene before a disease occurs or progresses. The idea is to perform due diligence in stopping bad things from happening.

One of these items for this patient, at this stage in her life, is friendship.

"Do you have friends that you are excited to see at school?" asked the pediatrician.

The patient didn't say anything. She did that a lot during the interview.

After some pause, the grandmother, an elder female with an air of authentic compassion about her, joined, "What about [friend's name]? Don't you like her?"

The patient agreed.

"What do you like about her?"

"She asks me if I'm having a good day, grandma," says the patient.

The room fills with delight.

"And she says 'good,'" the patient made sure to point out.

"Well, g-" before she comments, the grandmother raises another thought, "do you ask her about her day, too?"

"Yes."

"Well," I listened as the grandmother's voice lightens, "that sounds like a good friendship to me."

In that moment, the elder woman's words dissipated a bit of the storm cloud over my forehead. Maybe a good friendship is this simple after all.

"How is your day?"

"Good."

"Good."

"How is your day?"

A good friendship is two people caring about each other.

Photo: Part of a pebble art by Mary Ann Kim, makim27@comcast.net, purchased in Erie, Pennsylvania