It was at the beginning of the pandemic and I had recently started a new job. Trying to prove myself, I was working very long hours, we had kids at home, a school in our living room, extra meals to cook and dishes to wash, and I was just about going crazy like everyone else. I was surrounded by my family, but I still felt lonely. I needed my friends.
Then my friend called me from San Diego to say she was starting a children's book publishing company and did I want to join her. Overwhelmed, I wished her luck and said I'd help from afar but I just COULD. NOT. DO. IT.
In recent years we hadn't spoken as often as we liked, but we knew we always had each other if needed. Still, connecting again was nice, and I noticed I had really missed her. We laughed and commiserated and healed together.
The pandemic made it clear we all needed our friends even if we couldn't see them - probably especially because we couldn't see them.
I came to my senses and decided to leap in with the company. That is when my friend Juliana, the co-founder of our publishing company La Joya Press, wrote the first draft of our bilingual book "Between Friends/Entre Amigos."
Simple in concept, the theme of friendship had come front and center in our lives. The business had connected us and we realized how much we needed each other.
When you are little friends come easy.
"Want to play?" and you have a new friend!
As we grow up, graduate, get married, or move, friendships are so much harder to keep and yet just as important for our happiness, our hearts, our journeys through life. But we lose friends along the way or maybe even get hurt by friends. Even as adults we may question: "Is this person really my friend? Is this person good for me?"
I started to notice that my daughters were sometimes making friends based on cliques, or being friends with others who were mean to them simply to fit in.
What if we could make the friendship book about all the wonderful small and big things that make a friend good for us, honest and truly good just because of who they are and how they act? Not perfect friends, but good friends? And what if a child could pick up this book and see that not everyone you meet has to be a friend, but that if you spot a good one, they're a keeper.
We wrote this book to honor each other, our friendship, and all the wonderful friends we have made along the way - and the wonderful friends your children will make too.
