LOVE is real in friendship

A few days ago my mother and I were talking and something occured to me. it is obvious, but somehow, that moment made the thought quite poignant. We were looking at our family dynamic. Our family are seen as the most successful. Other members of my family are doing very well in my estimation. However, my parents have always been envied, and they ave been discussed behind their backs by other family members in my presence and the presence of my sister. Many times, together when we were children. No one dared say anything to my parents, but they took great pleasure in gossiping behind their backs. The gossip would be about who do we think we are? We have so and so, and our house is a castle and we feel we are so special. Naturally this colored our childhood and when we got older, my sister and I swore, along with one of our cousins, that we would NEVER do that to each other. My cousin was the first and only one to fold after making that promise. My sister and I have lived our lives by communicating with each other all the time. I can tell her anything and I do and she does that with me. If the topic is really sensitive, I tell her or she tells me that it is hard to talk about and we make the time and space to work on whatever is the challenge. So, we were talking about that, and suddenly I saw how much the belief that other people are having 'great' lives while you are not, is a fallacy. How do you even know this? Every person has challenges. I love that statement made by a dear family friend who said this about the Queen more than a decade ago. So, now, I am thinking about that, and taking it further when thinking about people who appear to have it all. They may have what may appear to be everything....house or houses, car or cars, access to all types of wealth...but they also can have mental illness, or loss of love or lack of. They may be lonely? Of course their are people very satisfied with their lives of all financial stripe as well, and that is successful. I had a student who showed me that at a time in his life where to me he had his plate filled with stresses. he got married during completing his degree. He and his wife lived with his parents and then when she got pregnant, they had to move to her family as his family started acting odd. One day I had taken the class out to one of our gorgeous hotels for a musical and artistic showing. At one point there was an intermission and the students were allowed to wonder around for half an hour. I found him looking at one of the really stunning views, just quiet and engaged. He turned to me and told me that he used to come to this very spot and look out at the world, so appreciative of the fact that he is alive within it. When he said that to me, my view of him increased to deep regard. I now know this Father of three soon to be adults and his wife, and I have seen him embrace life. i have seen him travel, and explore new things. I have seen his good attitude to life and to work. He makes me see in his small and not so small gestures, that it is always up to us to make it the best it can be and then some. It doesn't take money, it doesn't take luck, it doesn't take friends. It takes your attitude every single time. Of course he has had stumbles, he's had debt. he's had illness. But he has also had his faith and his joy in being alive and I appreciate him tremendously. PS: I tried to tell him how much he means to me a few years ago, and what I mean to him floored me. I was so moved by his regard for me that I nearly cried. It is important for me to write this now, particularly in regard to the challenges I look at as such.