#WatchMyBack
Published in The Greenwich Sentinel on July 29, 2017
Last week, we brought our daughter to the beautiful shores of a lake in upstate New York to a performing arts camp where she will spend the next three weeks dancing and singing.
It’s her second year at sleep away camp, and when we received the first letter from her last summer, it said, “I don’t miss you as much as I thought I would. How’s Maui (the dog)?”
She had a great time.
One year later, there was a little more trepidation, a little more emotion and reservation. Perhaps she knew what was ahead of her. The first few days are filled with auditions for musicals and dance performances and making new friends, which can be both challenging and exciting. Like last summer, she went to camp with a good friend from home, and as we hugged goodbye and she brushed a few tears away from her cheek, I reminded them, “Don’t forget, girls, to have each other’s backs.”
I love that expression because it says so much and it’s so strong and physical. You can literally close your eyes and feel the warmth of your best friend’s hand on your back. Although the origins are not confirmed, many think the phrase “watch my back” comes from World War Two, when small squads of soldiers entered war-torn villages, sweeping the streets and homes for snipers and enemy fire. The first soldier in had to be sure that he wouldn’t be attacked from behind, saying, “watch my back” to his buddies as he pressed forward. Today, “watch my back” may not carry the same weight or be about saving one’s life, but it has evolved to mean fierce loyalty and friendship and I would argue that those are two qualities on which our life depends.
I received a thank you card in the mail the other day—that’s right, snail mail, which carries more weight than a text or an email. On the front of the card was a picture of a man with whom I attended boarding school. Our junior year, he broke his back in a skiing accident, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He managed to graduate with our class from the confines of his wheelchair. I didn’t know him well and I am not sure I have seen him since, but when I was asked to donate to a medical fund earlier this year, I joined many of my classmates and sent a gift.
We share a common experience and that experience bonds us, and that bond prompts us to continue to care for one another. We are all members of the Class of ’83, where our senior year motto was “Together.” So it seems natural and fitting that we would come together to literally have our classmate’s back with the hope that if the circumstances were reversed, our class would have our back, too.
Over spring break, I took three of our children to the Caribbean for a few days. To get to our favorite beach on the island, one has to hike up and over a small hill. The path is covered with rocks and roots and can be challenging in the heat, especially when your arms are loaded up with bags of towels and water and boogie boards.
One morning, we set out on the trail to the beach and ran into an older couple. They were inching their way up the path holding each other, waiting for one another and literally pulling and pushing each other further along. As we got closer, I realized that the twosome was actually the elderly parents of a friend of mine. I stopped to talk. It had been a long time since I had seen them and they were much older and quite unstable in their footing.
They explained that they had been on the island all winter but that this was the first time attempting to get to the beach, and perhaps their last time. While the kids went ahead, I walked and climbed with them, enjoying their conversation and making sure that they arrived safely at the most beautiful beach on the island. They did. We said our goodbyes and they strolled away along the sea, hand in hand. This beautiful couple had been coming to this beach for fifty years, and they made sure that they each had the chance to enjoy it one more time. They had each other’s back.
My grandmother used to say that if you have five real friends when you die, then you are lucky. Look at your hand—count your fingers—five! And I have always been both lucky and blessed by friendship; true friends, the kind of friends who have your back. Yet today, there is such a value placed on the friends that we collect on Facebook or the number of followers that we have on Twitter or Instagram. True friendship is less about following and more about walking side by side, sometimes leaning in and sometimes standing on your own.
I hope that our daughter also feels blessed by friendship, that she is a true friend in return; that she will be part of a community that she cares about and that cares for her; and that she will find a best friend to share her life with and they will make the journey to the beach together. Because in the end, as Ram Dass says, “We are all just walking each other home.”