Kate Durrant: ‘we are bonded by the unconditional love we call friendship'

While we celebrate wedding anniversaries, toss our hats in the air during graduations, and acknowledge work achievements with presentations, we do little or nothing to formally celebrate what, to me, are the most significant relationships in our lives – our friendships.

As C.S. Lewis said: “Friendship is born at the moment when one man says to another – What! You too?”

To simply label someone a friend doesn’t do the relationship justice. It sounds too casual, too inconsequential to be just friends. Yet there is no committal ceremony where you promise to stay together forever, nor are you connected by birth, but there’s a glue that’s as strong, and at times stronger, than any of these more formal ties.

Throughout my life, many friendships have come and gone. Some were for a season, others for a reason, but the ones that endured, the people who love me despite, not because of, who I am, are very special.

There is a particular group of friends that has sewn a thread through my entire adult life, darning many of life’s patches along the way. These women and I share a shorthand that predates our husbands, and is older than our, now grown-up, children.

We’ve been together through new romances and broken hearts, the joy of babies and the heartache that can come with teenagers, first jobs and soon-to-come retirements. We’ve danced around each others’ handbags at parties, raised our glasses at weddings, and hugged each other in far too many funeral homes.

For all the words we have shared, and believe me, there have been many, it’s that which remains unspoken that really tells our story.

The glance exchanged across the room that silently says, do you want to go home, I like the look of him, or, are you okay?

The inside jokes that only we understand, the lyrics of a song that bring back memories of that road trip, and the faint scent of a passing perfume that instantly transports you back to a wonderful weekend away.

We’re not old. I like to think that we’re only getting started now our children are reared, but illness, as we all know, is no respecter of age. Last year, one of us received a bleak diagnosis. This unwelcome news drawing us closer, reminding us of what, and who, really mattered.

She left us on Christmas morning, fittingly, that day that brings us great gifts, and I hope she knew what a gift she had been to us all

After we got over the initial shock of such devastating news, we began holding space, something we all do instinctively when trouble calls to our friends’ doors.

WhatsApp got busier, with a group created to arrange a rota for visiting our friend without overwhelming her, as another coordinated deliveries of flowers and treats. Small gestures that we hoped would help keep life ticking over, allowing our friend and her family to focus on what they had to do. A third became the channel to pass on news that she wished to be shared, also becoming the repository of old photographs and memories that reminded us, as she began to drift away, of who she was.

Our friend was incredibly brave, never flinching from the unpalatable truths, and not allowing us to either. She was equally forthright with the medical staff who she advised, in no uncertain terms, to include her in their team talks. “I’m part of the team,” she reminded them, directing operations from her hospital bed, “I’m not on the bench.”

But team or bench, her illness was unrelenting and, all too soon, we found ourselves making the arrangements that we never wanted to make, as we tried to become the friends she needed. Listening rather than advising, sitting in communion, our hands always touching, making a safe space for talk and tears, and there was plenty of both.

She left us on Christmas morning, fittingly, that day that brings us great gifts, and I hope she knew what a gift she had been to us all. Our lovely friend who we were not related to by blood or marriage, but by something even stronger – that life-changing unconditional love that we call friendship.