L. Jasmine Kim ’86

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back.”

My Wellesley friendships, those cosmic connections, are encapsulated in this passage by James Baldwin. My friends were with me in our 20s as we figured out life after college, in our 30s as we discerned our hearts in marriage and career, in our 40s as we anchored each other through ups and downs, and in our 50s as we fell upward. Indeed, the more deeply I learn about love, the more we practice and work every day to see each other and ourselves in the other.