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Hey Pandas, Share A Moment When You Realized Someone Was A Great Friend
Pandas, please share heartwarming stories of friendship!
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When my mom died, I was completely devastated. She had been battling severe depression and her apartment was a complete hoarder disaster. I had to go clear it out and didn't even know where t start. My best friend came over and completely took charge, delegated tasks to each person there, and we got it completely done in 2 days. I honestly don't know how I could ever repay her for that. She was on her vacation time from work as well.
Every good mate of mine has their own origin story and too many to list here, but one thing they all have in common was at various points in my life when i've needed someone to have my back, they've stepped up when they didn't have to but when it was very welcome support. They're the ones I run to help when they need it too - you can't buy loyalty, but you can reward it with loyalty back. I'm very lucky in the friends I have around me, whether it's been something serious like when i had cancer, something so utterly horrific when i lost my daughter, or during lockdown when due to my health conditions I had to shut myself away on my own for 18months - there'd often be shopping, a bottle of something nice, or some such on my doorstep followed up witih a phone call asking if there's anything else I needed. I love those guys to absolute bits, they take the sharpest edges off the shittiest bits that life throws our way and are a joy to share the good times with.
this was 40 yrs ago. i needed to get out of a very abusive marriage. i had decided to take refuge at a shelter for battered women that was about 60miles away. my friend knew how volatile my ex was and that the timing had to be perfect for me to get out of the house with my 18 month old son. we planned and when the day came we were like ninjas at lightspeed, loading up the car with all that i needed for my son as i only took a couple of changes of undies for myself. i knew that my ex would contact and question her when he realized i had left. she was so brave and such a good friend. it has been many years and thankfully via facebook i have been able to keep in touch with her. i will never ever forget her.
I met my best friend in kindergarten and he watched me grow up, have crushes, get abused by my parents, get kicked out of my House, get on and off drugs, jump from guy to guy and go no contact with the world for two years. After two years of silence, I got therapy and went to school to get a good job. Full of shame, I knocked on this guy's door and when he answered, he greeted me like he's seen me everyday, handed me a water and invited me in. He didn't mention me disappearing or anything bad I've done. He handed me a PlayStation controller and we went back to normal if not better.
On my friends birthday she wanted to go for afternoon tea with about 10 of her friends. For anyone who doesn’t know, afternoon tea is sandwiches, cakes, champagne and tea, it’s fairly expensive and is a bit of a classy treat. I’m the only one that is vegan. I tell my friend that if she lets me know once she’s booked somewhere and I’ll ring them up to let them know I’m happy with anything that’s vegan. My friend tells me that I don’t need to do this because she will check before she books that they can provide me with a vegan alternative and if they can’t then we’re not going there.
When I go out with my own family they don’t even bother checking options for me and yet a work friend that I’d only known a couple of years was willing to forgo the place she wanted to go for her birthday if they couldn’t provide me with a similar meal. This was the first of many times that she advocated for me and I think this speaks to the strength of her character. She’s an awesome person
My family often don't check that places meet my dietary requirement either. I can usually only have one option.
When I came to my current school, people weren’t the nicest to me, and I didn’t know anybody. I had just gotten out of a tough 5th grade where I was pretty much made an outcast and laughingstock. We were still on WebEx, so I would say hello to everyone every day, hoping for a friend. One girl would say hi back, we eventually met in person, and we’ve been friends for about a year now.
I had just come back from an incredibly tiring day, and my friend, lets call her Annie, ran to me and gave me a huge hug. my old bestie never did that, and I realized Annie was a true friend
When my friends left me alone when I was having a hard day. They know I don't like to interact when upset because I snap easily so yeah. It was nice, I just sat near them and they let me do my thing
When I was singing for a talent show when I was, like, eleven and totally messed up, forgetting the lyrics, and unlike the rest of the school, who were laughing at me and making fun, she jumped onstage and started singing along. We are BFFs to this day.
when he offered to skip all his classes to make sure i was okay. ofc i turned him down so he'd go to class but it was an incredibly sweet gesture.
The person found me sobbing in a bathroom and sat with me, during a formal occasion to which she had a date, until I felt better.
When I was in middle school I was bulled relentlessly. Enter a new kid aka my new bestie! Has been my bestie for 15 years now! We are LGBTQ+ buddies and they helped me come out as non-binary and omnisexual to my parents, which means the world to me. Most importantly, they helped me through my depression and and I help them through theirs. I treasure them more that my families tbh which sounds horrible. But they have been there for me and protected me when my parents refused to.
At a wedding, everyone was couples dancing, except me and one of my friends also in attendance. She asked me if I wanted to dance with her. For reference, she hates dancing.
I have a really great friend. Let's call her Malea. She was in the same period during P.E. and I have very low self-esteem and tend to doubt myself. It gets to the point where I doubt I can hit a ball correctly. Every single time I doubt and belittle myself she always comes up to me and is like 'It's okay. You can do this. You are amazing." Every. Single. Time. One time there were people talking to me, asking if I was okay and I was panicking. It was really overwhelming. She sat me down and told me to take deep breaths. She waited until I was ready and then we went back to playing ping pong. Not only is she a great friend to me but she is a great friend to others. She is AMAZING.
Summer of 2016 I had moved to a new state and I was going into the third grade and knew no one. I don't make friends easily so I just kinda wandered around and made little fairy houses with the wood chips when it was break time. I had a couple kids come up and ask if I wanted to play with them and I agreed. When I went to play with them the next day however, they told me I couldn't play because I wasn't awesome at the game (4 corners), so I went back to my fairy houses. A couple weeks later a new girl arrived. She was shy, quiet, and looked like she had been crying for hours. So at recess, I took my chances and asked if she wanted to make fairy houses with me instead of sitting alone on a bench. She nodded her head yes and we sat in the corner of the playground having a one-sided conversation. Through out the weeks we became closer and closer and she and the shy, scared girl I originally knew was becoming loud, funny, fearless, brave, and was overflowing with a completely new personality! I found out we had a lot in common and that she really liked crafting. My grandma has a HUGE craft room so we set up a play date and we crafted all day long and ended up having a sleepover. We are still friends to this day and basically live at each other's houses. We call ourselves: The Sisters From Different Misters! We are both now in the 8th grade and soon to be freshmen's. We've stuck through thick and thin, good and bad, rain or shine, and so much more, and have had A LOT of fights. But, we always stuck right and have made through everything thing together and always will.
I was absolutely being DESTROYED in a Sonic & Mario Olympics tag team with my two best friends. When we did the surfing event, me and my friend (let's call Gary) demolished me, and it was my other friend's (let's call Larry) turn. He is usually the BEST at surfing. Keep in mind that he was in the lead in the tourney at the time. Instead of being awesome at the event, he totally sucked. I turned out to be second, I looked at Larry in disbelief and he looked back and winked at me. I didn't do any better in the rest of the tourney, but that one act of pure kindness reminded me what a truly AMAZING friend Larry is. (Gary's a good friend too, he's just VERY competitive.)
When my grandpa passed away. She flew back from her backpacking year in Australia to the UK to be at the funeral with me, stayed home for a month until I told her to go back and carry on with her trip.
When she helped me breath through my first panic attack, and when she helped me up both physically and mentally. I hurt my foot three weeks before a show that we were both in, and she was the one who both helped me figure out how to work with my crutches, and told me to go sit down when she saw I was getting tired. I love her to bits :)
When i was having a bad day, he didn’t try to talk me out of being sad. He just said “everybody has bad days, just get them over with now so you don’t have to deal with them later” i love him.
I'm lucky to have a few friends who've gone above and beyond over the years. I'll just pick one couple, Helen and Steve, who'm I've known for 34 years. He can be short-tempered and impatient (except with animals) but adores his wife, family and friends. She is patient and warm.
In 2019, my Mum could no longer cope living alone - deaf, nearly blind, and with dementia. My brothers and I finally settled that Mum would move to my town and I'd move in with her. I wanted to buy a house with cash and move myself and Mum in, then sell the old house. Mum's savings were about £95k, and I could add £10k as a loan, since it would be paid back when we sold the old house, which was worth £250k. Searching for the right place, with the cash we had, was tricky. Steve and Helen then offered to loan me £10k of their own money to put towards the new house.
I found somewhere, and when it came to my move, various friends pitched in to help me pack and move. I have MS and suffer from fatigue, so can't do much physical stuff. A month after I moved in, I was ready for my brother G to drive Mum up to my town - a drive of 4-5 hours with breaks. He made excuses that he was too busy this month, and wanted to put it off for 5-6 weeks. Mum was falling regularly, and needed to move ASAP. So Steve stepped up and offered to drive.
He came to Mum's house and stayed overnight in a hotel I'd booked. He helped organise stuff for the furniture removal and then drove me and Mum back to my town. Helen and other friends were at the new house to welcome the removal men and supervise the furniture unloading, as the van would arrive before we did. Mum arrived safely and settled in her new home. This was Feb 2020. If we'd waited for my brother to get around to it, lockdown would have happened, and our vulnerable mother would have probably been in hospital before long, either with covid of from another fall. She turned 90 back in Feb.
When I was going through chemo, my parents were trying to care for me, but their presence was sometimes too much. Not that I am ungrateful, I love them dearly and they took great care of me, but having them hovering over me and around my house would just be too much sometimes.
I went for chemo on Friday afternoons so I could do most of my being sick on the weekends so Saturdays were difficult for me. They were also the days that my parents would show up early and start hovering when all I wanted to do was sleep and puke.
One Saturday afternoon I woke up and realized that I had slept almost all day. It was the best sleep ever and my house was quiet. Completely quiet. I got up to use the bathroom, which was difficult because the chemo made my hands numb for a few days afterward, but I struggled until I got done what needed to be done. As I am sitting there on the toilet, the bathroom door gently opens and I hear my Sister-in-law say, "are you OK?" I told her I needed help getting dressed, and she helped get my undies up and said that there was no reason to get dressed. She had sent my parents away and she was going to stay with me and it was going to be a "jammie and jell-o day". It was wonderful. I stayed in my nightgown, she cleaned me up when I got sick, she did not cook or order food (the smell of food made me so sick on Saturdays), she ate jell-o with me and let me sleep when I wanted to and it was bliss.
I asked her why she did all this (we weren't all that close) and she replied that she could just tell I needed a break. That was almost eight years ago and I have made a full recovery and we had a few more of those Saturdays before my surgery. She was the kindest, sweetest, most gentle person and I would walk across hot, broken glass barefoot for her.
When I had a breakdown on a bus because a guy was harassing me and they held my hand until we got off of the bus and then gave me their coat.
When, despite being told I was the outcast of the school and a waste of time, she continued to be nice and be a friend.
She didn't judge people on popularity, she rarely judged anyone.
She stuck around me because I made her laugh, I stuck around because she made me feel like I finally wasn't the piece of trash everyone kept telling me I was.
She was a great friend and still is. I lost touch with all other friends. I lost touch with her too for about 15 years. When we reconnected, she was the same loyal and devoted friend I'd remembered all those years ago.
I recently told her that if she hadn't come along, I most likely would not have survived past high school. She gave me the confidence to keep going, to stand up for myself and believe in myself. She had no idea how much impact she had on my life.
I will be forever grateful to her.
When my friend helped me through one month of filled with several issues. Finishing of that controlfreak of (ex)partner, abortion, threating said ex-partner to stop him stalking and assisting me when I found out about my epilepsy due a seizure out of the blue
i noticed that all of my first friends didnt move. they where just jerks. but then i found june. my girlfriend. even though were lesbian we will have children.imma be pegnant.
My friends, Billy and Charlie are my best friends. They would never hurt me, except Charlie would sometimes jump on me, break my things, or steal food, but he was a lab, and labs do that. Billy would always follow me around at the dog park, to make sure no other dog would attack me (this was unnecessary, but I appreciate it nonetheless). Charlie was always friendly to everyone who was not a small animal. He would never hurt anyone (except small animals) unprovoked. They are always so happy to see me come home from school. Sadly, Charlie died recently from intestinal blockage. The vet told us as long as he was drinking water, he'd be fine, however, one day he stopped. Once I noticed this, my Aunt was at my brother's baseball game, and my uncle was working on a new house they bought. At the time, he was an hour from dying, he walked into my room, and laid there for an hour. He had chosen to spend his last moments with me. When my aunt came home, she immediately rushed him to the vet, but he died on the way. We miss him, especially Billy, who is now alone during the day.
There was a time my cars' motor was believed to be shot. We saw it had water filling up the oil pan and it was milky looking. I was sitting with my neighbor that I did spend a huge amount of time with, I knew how much I loved her, but until this moment I never knew what a wonderful loving and supportive friend she was. Without saying a word she got her checkbook out and wrote a check to me for 500 dollars and told me to go to ***** and ask if he had a motor for me. I was just beyond words. I had never had anyone do anything like that before, in my life. As time went own, I only loved her more, and yes, the car was saved and didn't need a motor, tho the cost was just a tad under the 500. Wht a gift from God is one good true friend.
When they (plural, two people) put up with me for around three years
I had waste water leaking into the Crawlspace under my house...
My dear friend C arrived with a basket of cleaning products, snacks and 2 bottles of wine! We took turns using a soup ladle to scoop out the very smelly water ( luckily it was confined in a small area accessed through the utilities cupboard) poured a bottle of Lysol down, and then shared the snacks and wine!
He helped me loose my v-card. I will never be more eternally grateful. My gf had just broke up with me when I thought we were getting serious. He stayed with me through that tough time, and helped me loose my v-card. I will love hime forever. ily james.
24th of May 1977, I was 19, just starting out as a Chef having dropped out of a prestigious University in Oxford and, more importantly, had, in the previous 6 months, really started to get along with my 17yo Brother - we'd really not done so in the past, including when we were both at the same boarding school due to Dad being in the military.
He had been over to see me and my girlfriend on the 23rd and we had all had a really good day together.
I get to work at 6pm on the 24th and was met by the manager who tells me that I need to get changed out of my chef whites and go to the local hospital as my brother had had an accident, he didn't explain further.
Got to the hospital quite quickly, got taken by a policeman and a nurse into a side room to be told that my brother had died on his way to hospital from massive internal injuries following a motorbike accident.
I then had to identify his body, he was still warm .....
I couldn't contact my Mum as she'd gone out to an early evening party with friends and the babysitter who was looking after my two other younger brothers didn't have a phone number or address and Dad was on a military exercise somewhere in North Africa ; when Mum got home, she was greeted by two policemen and was driven to the hospital to see my brother's body and be comforted by me .....
Dad didn't find out for another 3 days that his second son had died.
Did it affect me, yes, and still does.
Did I have counselling ? It was the UK in the '70's, what do you think ?
A few of the ways it has affected me is that when the wheels fell off my particular bus, I did many, many stupid, dangerous things, drank far too much, drugs by the bucketload, was financially reckless, couldn't settle in one place and would flit from relationship to relationship, oh, and I never thought I'd make it to 30 years old, so here I am at 60+ thinking how the F did I get here !!!
Still not retired due to my nihilistic view of life since I was 19, hey ho, life's a funny old thing eh ?
I stupidly forgot to say that my oldest friend from boarding school somehow found out 2 days later but got the message that I had died - he then got my parents land line number (don't forget, this is pre internet and mobile days so difficult to get that info), called it, I answered and burst into tears on finding out that I was still alive. He is my best friend to this day, we have been best man at both of our weddings and his son is my Godson. Thank you Bob, you saved my life and sanity ....
Well, my crush (let’s call him Jacob) is like one of my friends Ik we would never leave each other. We had our fist dance that we both decided to go to. We hung out with our friend group and all of our friends tried guessing who jacobs crush was. When they said my name he blushed, and confessed to me. I was shocked and our friends were so excited and freaking out. They wanted us to dance. All of a sudden he just puts a hand on me and we dance. All of our class circled around us a clapped and cheered. Apparently it was very obvious to everyone that we both liked eachother. I’m summurary for the rest of the dance is…
* Got two other friends to dance
* we held hands
* principal made us dance
* Jacob said he didnt wanna be my bf (we r still fairly young so it makes sense)
But he also threw in a not YET. in his sentence
* We danced a 3rd time
* Hugged goodnight and goodbye
But the main thing is Jacob never EVER judges me. Through that whole thing he was comfortable with me and made me feel happy. He makes me feel safe. He is my happiness. We suffered through embarrassment TOGETHER. I would do anything for him. I had a weird feeling for him and idk if it’s love. I realized I don’t even know what love is. Any help at all would be great! Thx
This was about twenty years ago. I was really down, it felt like everything was falling apart and anything I tried to do to hold together only made things worse. I was messaging with a friend, and said something like, "if my life were just broken, I could patiently piece things back together, but what am I supposed to do when it's been completely shattered and ground to tiny bits?" She replied, "methinks you have the makings of a beautiful mosaic." I totally broke down, still tear up remembering. We're still best friends.
A friend went to jail for me. Back in the 1970s. We were juveniles (15) and were breaking into stores and stuff. He got caught, but didn't give up my name when they asked about accomplices. He got 6 months in juvie.
We're both much older and, hopefully, a bit wiser now with families and careers. We still both live in the same town and are still good friends
I'm Marine Corps bootcamp i had gotten hemorrhoids. i was given suppositories to insert. i couldn't do it. at the time i have never inserted anything in any hole. i told a private i had met two weeks earlier about my situation. she not only offered, but actually helped me. this was in 1982. we're still friends to this day.
Such heartwarming stories :) When my mom was diagnosed with incurable cancer last year, SO many friends contacted me to check how I was doing, even the ones I hadn't spoken to in years. It's rekindled a lot of friendships I didn't even realize I had. They're the ones that I can call any time of day, and they know they can do the same with me.
Such heartwarming stories :) When my mom was diagnosed with incurable cancer last year, SO many friends contacted me to check how I was doing, even the ones I hadn't spoken to in years. It's rekindled a lot of friendships I didn't even realize I had. They're the ones that I can call any time of day, and they know they can do the same with me.
