It’s that time of year again when I try to fit in as many Christmas movies as possible. Next on deck this week, a Christmas classic: It’s a Wonderful Life.
I end up getting teary-eyed almost every viewing when Clarence leaves the message to George Bailey at the end of the film, “Remember no man is a failure who has friends.”
During difficult years in graduate school and in the pandemic, that line always forced me to remember the many ways my friends held and cared for me and that, even if I felt the year had been a failure otherwise, if I had these rich friendships things couldn’t be so bad.
This week I’ve also been listening to Rhaina Cohen’s The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center, a book I discovered thanks to Anne Helen Petersen’s fantastic newsletter. The book explores the place of friendship in society, and each chapter delves into a different adult friendship — friends who’ve decided to raise kids together, friends who’ve moved in together to support each other as they age, friends who’ve embraced the label of platonic life partner, friends who’ve served as caregivers for each other through grave illness, and more.
As the subtitle suggests, the main premise of the book is pushing back on the ways American society devalues friendship and puts romantic partnership on a pedestal instead and exploring what life might look like if we restructured it with friendship, and not romantic partnership, at the center. Cohen uses each chapter and a corresponding friendship she has chosen as a case study to examine the history of friendship, shifting societal understandings and definitions of friendship, and ways a refocus on and reimagining of friendship might enrich all of our lives in radical ways.
Of course, Cohen is not saying that romantic partnership has no value — she herself is married as are many of the people she interviewed for the book. Rather, she’s arguing that friendship itself has immense value which is often overlooked or dismissed to all of our detriment (Google “loneliness epidemic” and you’ll find a slew of recent articles on the growing problem of loneliness in our society). She’s also affirming those people who have chosen to center friendship in their lives and encouraging all of us to think more creatively about our friendships and how we might foster or recenter that sort of community in our lives.
Cohen’s book certainly resonates with my own lived experience. I’m 35 and still single, and thus, friendship has been at the center of my life for many years. I’ve been lucky enough to have always had close and meaningful friendships. Though I tend toward the introverted and have never had a huge number of friends, for as long as I can remember I’ve always had a small group of very close friends.
Of course, these close friendships in my life aren’t all due to luck or coincidence. I’m grateful for the many models of great friendship I’ve had over the years. My parents instantly come to mind, both of whom have fostered decades-long close friendships and still enjoy making new friends. In doing so, they’ve reinforced the value of friendship and community for me and my siblings.
As an avid reader, I’ve also always been inspired by the many literary friendships in the books I’ve cherished since I was a child: Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings, Harry, Ron, and Hermione in Harry Potter, the March sisters in Little Women. In particular, I’ve always had a soft spot for Anne Shirley and Diana Barry’s friendship in Anne of Green Gables — their kindred spirits and bosom friendship.
While listening to Cohen’s book hasn’t necessarily been groundbreaking or mindblowing for me, it’s certainly been affirming to the way I’ve structured my own life. And I think it’s a good reminder for everyone about the power of meaningful friendships and about the value in maintaining those close friendships in our lives.
To return to It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey fears his whole life has fallen apart and considers ending it all, but in the end, his friends see him through and George sees the fruit of the many friendships he’s cultivated from childhood. May we all hold on to Clarence’s message as 2025 comes to a close — “No man is a failure who has friends” — and may we find new ways to invest in friendship in the coming year.
What a thoughtful essay. Thank you, Allison. Such vital and understudied terrain, friendship. May it be celebrated across all the seasons. In a recent ekphrastic art event, I responded to a local sculptor’s work using these words.
Elephant and Bird
—responding to Jory Mason’s 2024 sculpture “Young Friends”
What might
a baby elephant
and a bird
have to teach?
With grey wrinkles and wings,
a tender trunk and a beckoning beak
themselves at home on the African continent
Meanwhile, humans engaged in scientific study or art rendition
notice how a red-beaked oxpecker,
all of eight inches long and weighing a mere two ounces,
companions a young elephant’s two hundred-plus pounds
catching there a free ride
so as to feast upon tiny pests,
a splendid symbiosis created by difference—
one might even call it a friendship arrangement
tiny and tremendous
from tip of trunk to tip of beak
displaying a truth
voiced by an American sage:
“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature”
May the young always be
schooled to see
the art of this elephant
and bird
in every class/room.
—Emily Jane VandenBos Style, 2024
Thanks, Alison, for a book I might want to read. I too have remained “single,” but have long been blessed with friendships and companionship in sharing a home with others. One reason Moses was such a revered leader through history is that he was a “friend of God” (Exodus 33:11), so much so that whenever he left the tent of meeting with God, his face would shine. Similarly, a narrow understanding of family, including church “families,” too often reveal a banding together of those like us. The concept of adoption into the family of God, led by Christ, our elder brother and our bright and shining morning star, stretches and roots our relationships during our current dark, divided and violent world.
A biographer once noted an observation by someone who knew Richard Nixon. The upshot of the comment was that Nixon could have avoided his worst problems if only he’d had a best friend. Alas, he didn’t.