"You can never know all there is to know about someone, even when you think you do"

NOT counting childbirth, and looking for the right exit off the Boulevard Peripherique — with four children in the back of the car, broken indicators, and the wrong map — placing my child’s future in the hands of a neurosurgeon has been the most immersive experience of my life.

The thing about this immersion — it feels like someone’s grabbing you by the back of the neck and ducking you under — is that afterwards, when you’ve resurfaced and not panicking has stopped being your full-time job — you think about certain words and their meanings in a different way.

Now that we’re all back home, carrying around the surgeon’s hopeful prognosis like it’s as precious as a newborn baby, I’m thinking about words a lot and that certain words are like onions: the more skins you peel off, the more meanings are revealed.

I’ve been thinking about words like ‘love’ and ‘trust’ and ‘faith’ and ‘hope’ and ‘fear.’ But these are big words, with too many skins showing too many meanings, and, right now, I’m not in the mood for that.

So, instead, I’m going to peel a few skins off a smaller onion: the word ‘friendship’, because I’ve been thinking about this word, too.

There’s always something more to be discovered in a friendship because you can never know all there is to know about someone, even when you think you do.

I knew a lot about my friend, Vanessa, before we stayed with her for the duration of our hospital admission. I’ve known her for 30 years, after all.

I knew exactly how she’d be when we stayed with her. I knew that she’d watch Neighbours every evening — that she’d sit on a low stool near the telly, as fixated as a soccer player about to take a penalty.

I knew she’d cook, cook, cook, because she’s nuts about cooking. I knew she’d drink two glasses of white wine every night, like she always does, and it would have to be ice-cold or else she’d get all uppity about it.

I knew that, at some point during our stay, she’d moan, idly, about how she fancies losing half a stone, but fancies pork belly more, so she’ll never shift it.

And that, now and again, we’d chat about her brother Jonathan, whom she loves, who died when he was eight. That when I went into ‘recorded programmes’ on her digi-box, I’d only find disappointing detective series like Inspector Morse and Death in Paradise.

When we arrived in her flat, I knew she had a mouse in her kitchen by the way she said she didn’t think she had one, never mind the droppings by the sink.

That when she dished up roast pork belly for us all, it would have the crispiest, juiciest fat in the world and perfect crackling that could break a tooth.

I knew she’d hum along to the radio in the kitchen, and I’d think, for the hundreth time, that even if someone held a gun to her head and said, “sing in tune,” she wouldn’t be able to. That we’d spend at least one mindless, companionable afternoon looking at stuff in shops. That it would do me the world of good.

And I knew, even though I told her not to, that she’d have taken ten days of annual leave from work so that she could be with me while I was being grabbed by the back of the neck and ducked-under.

I knew being ducked-under with her would make all the difference.

But what I didn’t know was how I’d feel when I came back to Ireland; that every time I thought of her free-flowing, easy-going, unconditionally available tenderness, it would make my eyes sting and water. Like when you peel an onion.