21 April 2025

Nancy – The Gift Of Goodness

Recently, a young person told me of an upcoming party she was giving. She invited several dozen of her “best friends.” “Your best friends?” I inquired. “Your best friends? How many best friends do you have?”

With a straight face, she explained that her “best friends” come in categories ranging from “really close best friends” to “sorta best friends” to “week-end best friends…” and so on … and so forth…

My young “friend’s” explanation reveals a common misuse of the word “friend.” Another example is the word “love,” often misused, as when we say we “love” family and we “love” chocolate and we “love” animals … without distinction, with equal fervor.

What’s The Point ?

The point is this: Having a “best friend” is a rare event in life. Our “culture” accommodates conversational errancy, clumsy jargon and endless distortions of words. We all have connections to many persons in family, work and leisure, so for want of a better term, we call these people our “friends;” certainly, the opposite term, hostile enemies, really doesn’t fit.

But … let’s be clear: a “best friend” is someone whose fidelity never wavers, no matter what … a person whose trustworthiness is proven over years. Such a relationship is unique; even Christ’s “friends” abandoned Him. “Best friends” do not do that.

Moreover, a “best friend” embodies the Virtues we learn to value in life, but rarely find … because:

• It often takes years before we are mature enough to realize that the Virtues are crucial for trust.


• Nonetheless, Virtues are dismissed by cynics, disdained by opportunists, discarded by our “culture” which canonizes “rights” but excludes inherent responsibilities and limits.


• Many of us naively get ourselves into intimate relationships which soon sour before we wise up and clarify our dignity to ourselves and others.


• Therefore, the centrality of Virtue in human affairs may be tucked away for decades in a corner of our minds and hearts, waiting for “someone” - for that “best friend” - to awaken in us our need to give and to receive trust, loyalty, fidelity and understanding, the basics of Selfless Love.

Maturity is rare … but it is the foundation of character and authentic friendship which always rest on Virtue. Mature friendship is the whole point of marriage. Mutual fidelity, trust, selfless generosity, forgiveness and the small, but endearing, courtesies in marriage are inspired by Love and ennobled by Wisdom’s readiness to give of oneself for the good of our Beloved best friend.

Nancy Remembered

Often do I entertain such remembrance of my Beloved Nancy, my departed wife and my best friend. Over the years since she died, her memory enlightens my heart and inspires my recollections of her smiling Goodness and her extraordinary Courage.

Admittedly (as in every good marriage) it took us years to learn - to truly learn - about one another … and about ourselves.

• It took years for us to learn to give and to receive without defensively guarding the hidden agendas and conceits which lurk in every fragile ego.


• It took years to become the vulnerable, yet trusting, persons we yearned to be.


• It took years to face our reluctance to change; years to accept the grace of giving to one another.

As the years passed, we learned that, to accomplish our loving goals with one another, we needed to develop a relationship with God through Christ … needed to develop regular communication with our Creator … and we needed to do this together.

Paths To Friendship

In our desire to enrich our marriage, we gradually experienced a re-birth of our Faith. As a result, our communication with Jesus became a very personal exchange in which we would tell Him how we were facing obstacles we had created over our lifetimes.

We sought His assistance to handle our feelings of frustration and anger. We told Him how much we appreciated His willingness to be our Friend, as we spoke to Him from our hearts (He is a very good listener). True, He did not often respond as we asked, nor did He grant all we sought … but He did reveal to us that our responsibility for becoming “best friends” was ours, not His.

So, consolation from Jesus was not always forthcoming, which was itself revealing … for it taught us that the “secrets” to building our relationship with Him - and each other - were perseverance and steadiness in our Faith in Him and in one another.

We realized that God does indeed love us (all of us) and is fully aware of us, even if He does not make His awareness obvious to us on our terms. But rather than challenge God or try to excuse our impatience, we learned to revere His silences as His chosen way of speaking to us in heart and soul.

We learned that it is in God’s silences that we are truly meant to peel away our hubris, to admit our need for humility, to overcome our conceits, to acknowledge our vulnerabilities … as He slowly revealed the folly of huffy disbelief and led us to the level of trust which befit His Divine Will.

In good time, we came to believe in His personal Friendship and Love for each of us. We learned the lessons in His dying and rising again; lessons meant for each of us: that no greater Love exists than to give your life for your friend … and that is precisely what He did for us both.

And we would talk to Him and to one another, renewed in God’s good time by the insights of our Faith, which we shared with Him and with each other.

Best Friends

As decades passed, we learned to listen with humbled heart, and we saw how blessed we were, surrounded by an abundance of Love given and received. This abundance reminded us of how enriched we were by the good people in our lives … those precious people - those friends - who brought smiles to our hearts and gratitude to our souls and hope to our spirits.

And we realized the grandeur of empathy which inspired us to ask ourselves: “How might we bring Goodness and Kindness and Love into the lives of others…?”

Finally, in her latter years, my Beloved Best Friend was plagued by increasing medical problems. She bore her ills with serenity, without complaint. I recall that moment when her physicians told us they could do nothing more. As we listened, she smiled graciously, then closed her eyes and folded her hands. And, at that moment, her courage and forbearance testified to the fact that her path to personal insight, deeper Faith, stronger Hope … to God's own Love and Wisdom … was surely found in the gift of suffering which she accepted with calm equanimity and trust.

The anniversary of her death (May 1st) is shortly upon us. As I think of her, I am again reminded of a sonnet by Shakespeare which calls up many loving memories of Nancy, My Best Friend: