What I learned from my Aunt Jean and the ‘girls’ in her bridge club about enduring friendship is particularly relevant for 2020 when we are yearning for connection in ways we couldn’t have imaged this time last year. To me, this is what real long-term connection looks like.

The bridge club started during the 1930’s when Aunt Jean was a young teenager playing bridge with her girlfriends in the high school cafeteria at lunch.

Time went by and the girls grew up, a couple moved away but the core group of friends remained intact.

The high school cafeteria was exchanged for monthly evening bridge games complete with specially planned snacks and desserts, cloth-covered card tables and the good china. Every month they gathered to share. They supported each other through kids, divorces, deaths, financial challenges and everything else that life threw at them.

Decades passed, the girls were getting older and so were their eyes. Evening events turned into afternoons to avoid night driving. Next, home baking was exchanged for buying your favorite ‘store bought’ delicacy.

In what seemed like no time the girls had been playing bridge for more than 50 years. One by one they gave up driving, moved into assisted living homes, forgot how to play bridge and the club kept on meeting. Well into her 80’s, Aunt Jean was the designated driver - faithfully picking up her friends to make sure everyone could get together once a month.

Aunt Jean died at the age of 85. She had been in the bridge club for 70 years. At her funeral, her friends – the remaining girls – told me about their life-long friendship and how special she was to each of them.

Amazing! It turns out that the bridge in bridge club was more than a card game it was a tie that kept these women friends for literally a lifetime.

How many of us have friendships that can pass that test of time? If you do, are you nurturing them as faithfully as the girls in the bridge club did?

I know I haven’t been diligent about friendships in the past – using geography and time as reasons to lose touch with people who bring a lot to my life. As a coach, I also know that I don’t have to let past behavior shape my future.

Thinking about Aunt Jean today has made me resolve to renew old friendships and be more dedicated to keeping the ones I have flourishing.

Who is in your bridge club?