"The Strength of a Friendship" by Rebecca Sacks

About mid-way through my Junior year at Stanford, I woke up with the worst hangover of my life. My friends and I had decided to put on a party that involved migrating between our dorms spread across campus, enjoying “adult beverages” at each stop on this journey. It was a terrible idea made worse by the fact that I had started the night already feeling a bit queasy due to some questionable shawarma I had eaten earlier that day. Head aching, I turned to the side and saw a note on my desk next to a packet of some sort. Groaning, I pulled myself out of bed to find two NAC tablets, a glass of water, and the aforementioned note from my roommate:

“You’re going to need this in the morning. Enjoy! - Molly”

Since we met, Molly has always been this kind of friend – one who knows the right resources and solutions and provides them without judgment but instead with a smile and a bit of knowing sarcasm. She is, without a doubt, one of my dearest and best friends, more family than companion. She also has Cystic Fibrosis. 

I met Molly in college. It was before modulators were available, and at that time, she was being hospitalized about two or three times per year to get IVs. I remember the first time that happened after I had met her, I biked over to the hospital with some friends and we spent the afternoon in her room gossipping and watching bad TV. Later, when she was discharged, she told me very clearly that one of the requirements for being her friend was visiting her in the hospital when she was admitted. That made perfect sense. Nobody likes to be in the hospital alone, and it seemed common sense to go visit a friend who was stuck there. 

What I didn’t realize is that Molly held this expectation but she also lived up to it in her own relationships. She is a friend who will be there no matter what sort of hard thing is happening. Even if she can’t physically be present, she will be in touch. She never lets her community doubt how much she cares. Molly has taught me how to be present, attentive, and caring beyond just the standards of human interaction. She has taught me how to show love through action. 

My relationship with Molly is one that continues to deepen – from acquaintances to friends to roommates to soul sisters. A question I often get asked is what it is like to have a best friend who is so sick? And I don’t have an answer for that. Molly’s CF has always been just one fact of her life and our friendship just as my depression and anxiety have been. I would hate to lose her just as I believe she would hate to lose me. But mortality is something that we have never dwelled upon. It has always simply been one fact in a tapestry of many: Molly loves to travel. She takes beautiful photographs. She cooks the most delicious meals you will ever eat. She makes sugar flowers. She’s opinionated and whip-smart. She’s an awe-inspiring dancer. She loves octopodes. She has CF. 

This is not to say that CF is not something that influences our friendship. When she had a massive hemoptysis event mid-pandemic, I spent a month on the opposite coast wondering if I could risk getting on an airplane to be with her and her family. When she was hospitalized in New York at the same time I was up there for auditions, I stayed with friends up the street from her hospital so that I could visit most days. In college, I learned how to “beat her up” to loosen up mucus and how to help her flush her port. I logically know that these are not “standard features” of a friendship, but they are standard features of our friendship.

Now, in many ways, Molly is the healthiest she has been (Trikafta is amazing. I want to personally hug every researcher involved in its advent). Our visits aren’t in hospital rooms, but at parks and playgrounds with her new baby. We are advancing through our thirties together. We sing together. She texts me videos of the baby’s first steps and pictures of cakes she baked for family members’ birthdays. Sometimes we hop on the phone and I hear about a medical scare or a new round of IVs, but those calls are fewer now and just part of the landscape of our conversations. 

So, what is it like to have a best friend with CF? I imagine it’s like having any other best friend. You share your joys. You share your pains. You show up when they need you, and you intrinsically know that they will show up when you need them. I imagine the only difference is the explicit way in which you learn what showing up really means. Molly sat me down that day. She told me how to be her friend, and I hope I did a good job listening because the friendship I received is more precious than anything else I know.