Friendship Love

The campfire caught slowly, and as we all gathered on Vesper Rock in our red and white camp uniforms, the way Rockbrook girls have for more than a hundred years, the woods around us grew darker, from green, to grey, to black, with nothing but firelight left. Sitting on rough log benches, cabin mates tucked tightly together, we began with singing. Soon we were arm in arm, swaying a bit, listening to campers and staff talk about their time at camp. Like so many things over these last few weeks, we were there together and that’s all that seemed to matter. And it occurred to me, hearing the speeches and seeing the emotion of it all, that what we were really doing at this Spirit Fire was recognizing a kind of love.

It’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it, but something special grows in us after three weeks of being at Rockbrook. I’ve called it closeness before, and that’s certainly true, but it’s more than that. The campers themselves call it love, and by that they mean a deep, special friendship. It’s an affection between people who delight in each other’s company and want good things for one another. When a camper tells her cabinmate she loves her, she means it. She means “I like being with you, you matter to me, I feel safe and happy when we’re doing things at camp together.”

One of our CITs named Audrey stood up by the fire tonight and put it like this. She told us that her friends back home always ask why she would willingly spend three weeks without her phone, and that she never quite knew how to answer until now. “I came first for the activities,” she said, but “I came back to be with the people.” She described arriving worried on the first day, not sure the campers would like her, but soon was proven wrong. As she got to know the girls, they gave her silly nicknames and, in her words, taught her more than she could ever have taught them. “Even though I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said, “the one thing that I’ll never leave behind is my love for the people here.”

You don’t say a thing like that unless it comes from somewhere deep and true. And what makes it true is exactly what camp provides: the rare conditions that allow genuine connection to grow… extended time together, repeated kindness, relaxed laughter, and a stack of shared memories tall enough to lean on. Give children that much time, trust, and freedom in one another’s company, and affection becomes almost inevitable. Of course they love each other. We’ve watched it blossom all session.

I find myself enormously grateful, grateful in so many ways. To the campers who gave themselves so fully to it. To a staff of young people like Audrey who showed up, enthusiastically, caring from the start. And to you, the parents, who trusted us with your daughters and made all of it possible. We don’t take that trust lightly.

Now that the trunks are packed and the cabins are quiet, what I want most to stay with these camp girls is the discovery that this kind of friendship love is real and theirs to make. They experienced it here, but that same openheartedness can be planted other places too. Start with kindness and trust will follow. The more you care, the deeper you’ll connect. Rockbrook has proven… they can do it.

As the fire burned down and we stood around the lake singing the last of the songs, we all walked back up the hill in the dark by candlelight. There is always something a little aching about that walk. But I think it’s just the love turned around to face the leaving. It’s just part of the experience and I wouldn’t trade it. It’s the people that’ll bring us back.