Leaving the Light On

A guest essay about friendship by Joy Nicholas 💛

Hey friend,

I stumbled across

Joy Nicholas

’ writing through Exhale. It’s a rare writer who can make you laugh and then tear up in the same piece, but she does both with remarkable ease. Needless to say, I was delighted when she agreed to write me a guest essay about female friendship 🧡

“When’s the last time you saw this lady?” It was a warm spring afternoon as we walked up a sidewalk lined with daffodils when my youngest daughter asked me this. 

I squinted at the numbers on the houses we passed and replied, “Umm… let’s see. I was in fifth grade, so… thirty-five years ago.” Instantly, I cringed, feeling incredulous. Thirty-five years?! That couldn’t be right, so I added it up again and sighed. Somehow, the math was mathing. 

I glanced down at Annalee, now staring at me in amazement, and felt relieved she had finally learned that “Back Then,” or how she referred to the years when I was a kid, we did not ride in horse-drawn carriages or defend ourselves against dinosaurs. Still, thirty-five years felt like pretty ancient history. My stomach flipped in momentary panic. What was I doing here, walking up to the door of a friend I hadn’t seen in more than three decades? Was this complete insanity?

Well, it was too late to turn back. I had already texted her that I was on my way.  

“This is it!” I said turning off the sidewalk. I pressed the doorbell, and then I held my breath.

I was born in Bangladesh and spent most of my first ten years there. That’s when I met Susi. She was in my fifth grade class at an international school, a German with beautiful blond ringlets and eyes the color of the cloudless sky. She didn’t speak much English when the year began, but she was kind in such a deep, true way that language didn’t matter. We were on the swim team together, which bonded us even more. But then, the following spring, my family moved to Thailand, and we said goodbye. Several years ago, a mutual friend connected us on Facebook, and we kept in touch with occasional emails. Last year, when I found out for sure that I was moving to Germany, I told her right away.

“I live only an hour from there!” Susi replied after I said exactly where we’d be. We were sure we would meet up soon, but mom friendships are next-level hard when we have to carve out time around school, activities, work, spouses, and so on. Several months later, she texted me, “I’m going to sound very German now, but here are the dates that work for me.” I picked the earlier date—and then the stomach flu hit, so we had to reschedule. 

But now, finally, here we were. 

The door opened, and there was Susi, the same crystal clear eyes and blond ringlets. Her two kids crowded behind her, looking at us curiously, and her husband waved from the hall. They ushered us into their sunny living room where Susi pulled out her old yearbook from fifth grade. Conversation and laughter flowed easily even before we dug into an incredible chocolate cheesecake she’d made. We drove together to a nearby garden where cherry trees and daffodils were blooming, then went back to her house and lingered over dinner.

“That was really fun!” my son Wyatt said when we very reluctantly got back into the car to drive home. As we sped through the night down the autobahn, we recounted the hours that had gone too quickly. 

“Mom? How long do you think it will be until I see Addie [her best friend] again?” Annalee asked from the back seat.

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “But hopefully not too long.” 

“So… like, not thirty-five years, right?” 

I laughed. “I sure hope not!” But almost as soon as I’d said it, I felt a tightness in my chest. My kids have said goodbye to friends over and over again. During my husband’s twenty-year Navy career, we moved eleven times. In the four years since his military retirement, we’ve moved four more times. It’s already been three years since she last saw Addie—an amount of time I knew felt like an eternity. 

“Do you think she’ll still like me when I see her again?” she asked. I wanted to reply light-heartedly, “What’s not to like?” Instead, I felt my breath catch around a lump in my throat. I had experienced friendships that didn’t survive time and distance. I wanted to give my daughter a definite yes, but I also knew it wasn’t mine to guarantee.

Addie’s mother Sarah is one of my closest friends, too. I met her when I was eighteen, so our friendship has spanned well over half my lifetime, surviving all those moves and years apart. Every time the door to her house opens, we’re instantly pulled into hugs, our ears filling with the sound of laughter, our cheeks wet with happy tears. We spend hours at her kitchen table, talking late into the night and laughing till our sides ache.

When I trusted my voice to not break, I said, “Well, Susi still likes me even after thirty-five years, and I still like her.” Then I reminded Annalee of all that makes Addie one of her favorite people, and what makes her Addie’s friend. 

“Remember how when we get to Addie’s house, it’s usually at night? What does it look like?” Annalee described the orchards, the tall trees standing sentry out front. “And Sarah has those lights on, right?” I continued. String lights criss-cross Sarah’s huge front yard. “Because she knows we’re coming, even if she doesn’t know exactly when we’ll get there.” I could see the silhouette of Annalee’s head nodding in the rear view mirror. “I think that’s how your friendship is right now, like those lights on in front of the house, just waiting for you.” 

I climbed into my bed that night, thinking about what I’d told Annalee. And then I said a prayer of thanks for the lights that stay on, shining through the darkness, for doors that open even after so much time apart, and for friendships that wait patiently on the other side.

Joy Nicholas is a writer and a mother to five kids. She was born in Bangladesh and has lived around the world. Now in Germany, she is working on her first book, a memoir. You can read more of her work at

Joy in the World

.

THE SUNDAY MORNING SNUGGLE is for you, the tired and overwhelmed woman in Perth. I want you to have beautiful, honest words, and it’s too hard to trawl endlessly online for beauty. All my favourite publications writing about faith and motherhood are American. This is for us. One week you’ll get a deep-dive essay musing about motherhood, faith, creativity, or whatever God is teaching me (probably patience, again). On the alternate fortnight, you’ll get a collection of poetry that you don’t need a degree to decipher.