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Speaker relays that friends renew, restore and revitalize the spirit
By LINDA M. LINONIS
SALEM
Christine Mabon offered a unique way of looking at friends during her recent presentation of “The Five Essential Friendships That Enrich Our Lives” at Salem Public Library, 821 E. State St.
She said the categories, which she equates to food, evolved over time after she experienced a tragedy in her life. Mabon, who lives in Mount Lebanon, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh, said she had been married for 22 years when her husband died unexpectedly.
“It was an unseasonably warm Christmas Eve day and he went out for a bicycle ride,” she recalled of the event in 2006. She was baking sugar cookies with her mother and sons, Andrew and Connor, while the family dog, Jake, a yellow lab, hung out.
A call came from her husband’s cellphone and a police officer said he had been in an accident. Mabon went to the hospital, where an emergency-room doctor broke the news of Jeff’s death from a heart attack.
“It was a surreal experience,” said Mabon, who was 44 years old at the time. “By noon that day, I was a widow and my sons had no father. It was a nightmare.”
When she returned home, she was surprised to find friends and neighbors there. “People came to the house, expressing support. It was Christmas Eve, and I’m sure they had other obligations, but they gave support.
“Many women brought food ... that fit their characters,” Mabon said. That experience evolved into her program on friendship.
“I had squeezed friends into pockets of time,” Mabon admitted because of activities with her sons and husband. After the death of her husband, that changed.
She said she has read research noting that women “connect differently” than men. For women, being with a friend can be physically beneficial as it stimulates the “happiness hormone and combats stress.” “For women, friendships are as beneficial as working out,” she said. “Not having quality relationships is detrimental. ... We’re meant to connect.”
As weeks passed after the funeral, gifts of food still popped up and along with them, stories people shared about the recipes. Mabon relayed that the death of her husband forced her to “take inventory on who I am to other people” and she began to look at relationships differently. “I learned about their value,” she said.
Mabon said “essential elements” of friends revealed themselves as “support to guide, love that heals and stories to share.”
She came to realize that the women who brought food shared more than sustenance. “Everyone had a story with a recipe. This is the connection that was pivotal in my healing and what brought me forward,” Mabon said.
Mabon recalled that one friend, who always had been a comforting person, brought a meatloaf. “I loved it [meatloaf]. It took me back to a time as a child when I felt safe and secure.”
That friend reassured Mabon that she “would come back to that feeling.”
Another friend brought a box with fixings for fajitas. She talked about “how life was meant to be enjoyed” and how I could get through the trauma. Still another friend brought scones and a recipe. But that friend told Mabon that she could use substitutes. “It was her way of saying ... be adaptable.”
Mabon said she began to connect friends with food courses that reflected the types of friends they were.
Mabon said she is working on a book, “Comfort Food – One Woman’s Journey to Understand the Meaning and Significance of Friendship,” about friendships that “came through food.”
Her message is this – “Good friends can renew, restore and revitalize the spirit.”