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Juniors and Seniors Share Their Friendship Stories in Chapel
How do you be a good friend? How do you tell a bad friend from a good one? How do you treat people you aren't friends with but still have to go to school with? How do you repair a friendship that is broken?
These are some of the questions we have explored in Lower and Middle School Chapel over the past few weeks. Our special guest speakers were Moravian Academy friendship experts: juniors and seniors who built enduring friendships during their time on the Downtown Campus, and have sustained them through their years at Merle-Smith.
Seniors Nabeel Rifai '23 and Adrian Vanegas '23 met in fourth grade on the playground. Their friendship first formed around shared interests, including superheroes, music, and playing the trumpet. They relied on each other through middle school, developing a bond of trust that helped sustain them through the years of the pandemic. As high school students, they have each developed their own interests, yet still share many of the same values, and support and encourage one another through their endeavors. As Nabeel described in Chapel, "We have built trust and worked together through the hardest courses Moravian has to offer, coming out with unforgettable memories and the skills to tackle the future." Nabeel admires Adrian’s truthfulness and character.
For Adrian, Nabeel is someone he can confide in and who will listen with care. "Good and bad friends are hard to differentiate sometimes," the boys shared, "but the key thing is how they make you feel. If you leave feeling worse than before you were with them, they’re bad for you. But, overall, a good friend is someone who is there for you, at your meets, your performance, your highs, your lows, and someone who helps you through them. They will be kind and compassionate, and you ought to help them too."
Juniors Ginny Toso '24 and Quinn Lauden '24 have been friends since sixth grade, and they like to think that they’ve been through it all. "The highs, the lows, the bumps, the tears, the laughs," and eventually a misunderstanding that fueled an argument, and led to the discovery of hard truths. Close friends now, Ginny and Quinn took a break from their friendship for a few years, as they each developed the maturity and perspective to repair it. As Ginny described, "In the midst of having to navigate growth, who you are, and where you belong, something has to give. When you’re so focused on self-discovery, you forget that others are experiencing the same thing." "Fighting and being in rough patches with friends is entirely normal," added Quinn. It happens to all of us, whether we like it or not. It’s just how we respond to the awkwardness and tension that affects the friendship and its stability in the long-run."
There isn’t any one solution to solving the problems that arise in a friendship, but the girls have found a way forward that works for them. "We’ve shared tears, laughs, heartbreaks, and joys," said Ginny. "Our friendship isn’t built on a few big moments but an endless list of small ones." Quinn added, "Our friendship is not reflective of everyones’, each individual person encounters relationships in entirely different ways, but we hope that in sharing our friendship with you all, you can find hope in sustaining the relationships you have and mending the ones you’ve thought are lost. Friendship is fragile and it hurts to lose; it can be honestly terrifying to reach out and say something before all is said and done, but it’s then, when you reach out, that you show how much you care. It’s there where the meaning of friendship is embodied."
We are grateful for the wisdom these four thoughtful young adults shared with our community, and for their wider perspectives and hope for the future. The opportunity for students to learn from, and to share themselves with others is one of the many gifts of a student body that spans from preschool through high school.
