An Unexpected Gift

This essay originally appeared in the Edmonton Journal on Feb. 24, 2007.

I bought my first pair of Dr. Martens in 2018, inspired by Bridget, who rocked her kid-sized Docs combat boots. That’s us in the midtown Manhattan Docs store.

Growing up there was nothing I coveted more than a horse or a little sister. My parents refused to provide either, but I was determined and resourceful.

I collected plastic horses and set up a farm on top of my bookcase. As for the sister, I befriended an adorable girl named Bridget, who was four years behind me in school and whose family belonged to the synagogue where my father was the rabbi.

Perhaps because Bridget’s only sibling was a younger brother, she welcomed the chance to pal around with a bigger girl. Two bigger girls, actually, because my own big sister decided she could use another younger one.

Bridget didn’t go to our school, so we mostly saw her on the Sabbath, holidays, and at Hebrew school. I don’t remember exactly what the three of us did together, but we always had fun.

And then, as happens when people grow up, we lost touch. My father died, my sister and I went off to university, and my mother moved to another state.

Nearly five summers ago I was leafing through the New York Times and came across a story about Bridget’s wedding. She had married a network television lawyer, a man descended from pilgrims (a big deal where I come from). She was working for a major museum in New York City. I thought about contacting her and saying congratulations, but instead I did the Zen thing and directed kind and happy thoughts toward the northeastern seaboard.

A few years later, I heard more about Bridget from my best friend in high school, an architect who had worked on a project at the museum. But it wasn’t until I went to New York a couple of weeks ago that I had some time and decided to look her up.

I was a little nervous: close to 30 years had passed since I’d last seen her. Was it too weird to be contacting someone from your that-long-ago past? Plus, Bridget had a fairly important job. What made me think she’d even have time for me?

As it turned out, our visit was an unexpected highlight of my trip, which is saying a lot considering that other highlights included meeting some of my favorite children’s writers, finding a Hershey’s chocolate store in Times Square, and discovering that you no longer have to pay sales tax on clothes in the City if you spend less than $150.

But all that paled with hearing Bridget’s version of what I’d always thought was a friendship that benefited mostly me. “I really looked up to you and your sister when I was little,” she said. “You were so smart and interesting, and it meant so much to me that you were willing to pay attention to a little kid. And then we lost touch after your father died, and I felt bad about that, because I really could have used friends like you when I was a teenager.”

I was floored. And also touched. And a little sad, because having her friendship in the years after my father’s death splintered our family might have made my life easier, too.

The night before visiting Bridget, my daughter called me, upset about what had happened at a school science fair meeting that day. A grade one girl she likes had asked if they could do a project together. Elizabeth, who is in grade six, was planning to do a project with her brother, so she said no. The girl began to cry. Elizabeth felt terrible. I suggested she find ways the girl could help, and told her we could talk about it when I got home.

I didn’t give it much thought until my plane was about to land in Edmonton, which is when the irony struck me. As I tucked Elizabeth into bed that night, I told her about Bridget. “The little girl who asked you to do the science fair project looks up to you,” I said. “Let her help.”

Years from now she probably won’t remember the details of the project. She might not even remember Elizabeth, but I’ll bet she’ll remember the kindness. Or maybe the two of them will be lucky enough to find what I did when I called Bridget: the unexpected gift that comes when you reach back into the past and find something worth holding onto in the present.

Bridget with my kids, Elizabeth and Noah, near Sag Harbor, NY, when we visited in the summer of 2013

In the 19 years since I wrote this column, Bridget has become such a part of my life that not a day goes by when I don’t think of her. I think of her every day in the kitchen when I look at the spoon rest I bought when she introduced me to her favorite kitchenware store in Manhattan. I think of her in the shower because when my husband and I renovated our bathroom, we were inspired by the soap niche that Bridget and her husband had in their newly renovated bathroom. I think of her when I look at my bushy eyebrows and remember how, every time I would visit her, she’d take me to the Bobbi Brown counter at Bloomingdales to have them tidied up. I smile when I look at the politically incorrect cartoon hanging on the back of my office door; she drew it for me because I had what I thought was a funny idea but my artistic ability ends at stick figures and she was a great cartoonist.

Ten years ago, nine years after we rekindled our relationship, when her sons were 13 and 11, Bridget was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. It progressed relatively slowly, but it’s advanced significantly now. The last time I saw her, in March, she mostly paced, but every once in a while she’d slow down to dance with me, which is what we’d done during a visit nearly two years earlier. Back then she remembered the words to Hebrew school songs from more than a half century ago. If she didn’t remember the words, she at least remembered the melodies.

She didn’t sing this time, but she remembered some melodies. According to this beautiful essay by Deborah Copaken, she remembers my name, too. Whether that’s because Deb and I have the same name or because Bridget is thinking of me is unclear. It doesn’t really matter—I’m just grateful that I’ve had the chance to know and love the adult version of the person who was so special to me as a kid. That’s the gift of a lifetime.

Dave and I took turns dancing with Bridget on a visit in April 2024