30 years this October.
Janet and I met at our white coat ceremony in 1995, sat two seats apart, alpha by last name. Walking home from school days later, I learned her family lived in Denver for a while when we were kids. We exchanged parents’ names and went home to call our respective ones. And get this: Her dad was my grandfather’s student, and stayed at the Cheng family home in Tainan, Taiwan one summer while studying engineering. He was one of Yeh-yeh’s favorites. We went to their house for dinner once (neither Janet nor I remember). When Ba recounted the evening, he got most animated about the concrete foundation that Janet’s dad had laid for the playhouse in the backyard (both dads are civil engineering PhD’s).
Positively. Cosmic. Sisters.
We were joined at the hip in school. We sat at the back of lecture halls, Janet doing crosswords and I writing letters. As anatomy partners we created mnemonics with gestures to remember the cranial nerves and their exit points from the brain. We learned interviewing and physical exam skills together, went to the gym, cooked, and basically grew up together in the final stages of adult brain development. Some of our teachers could not tell us apart. We rotated on pediatrics together when she met her now husband, an intern then, eating French fries and drinking ginger ale on call every fourth night. We attended each other’s weddings (I got to stand up in hers). Our kids are similar ages.
As an executive health internist and academic neonatologist, our professional worlds overlap little, yet we still speak multiple languages in common (including American English-accented Mandarin). As we, our parents, and our children have all aged these three decades, contact has fluctuated and our bond remained intact. This weekend Janet came to Chicago and we spent three days together cooking and yapping, our longest in-person time in fifteen years. We made a menu in advance and headed to the grocery store on her arrival. These three days we cooked Vietnamese spring rolls, green onion pancakes, fried rice, potstickers, and curry beef pastries, all steeped in nostalgia and yumminess. Doctoring, momming, daughtering, wifing, teaching, leading, citizening–we covered it all while mixing, rolling, wrapping, frying, steaming, baking, and of course eating.
Our class stays connected on a What’s App chat and we are impressive, I must say, many of us leaders in our fields, making an impact. And yet when we gather, we still meet as the people we knew then: eager, optimistic, young students. We reach out with news, requests, and just to say hi. That easy connection is just so special. How have 30 years passed already? Will we still be around to celebrate another 30? It’s possible, and I will revel in every year we get with one another in the interim.
Dear readers, I wish for us all to have friendships like this–the ones that persist with easy and steadfast confidence, that we trust implicitly, that validate and support, that endure and mature in mutual respect, admiration, growth, and evolution. It’s these meaningful relationships that will hold us up in life, no matter what happens.
Healing Through Connection 