How to Be Loved: A Memoir of Lifesaving Friendship

I read How to Be Loved in two days' time, but I’ve been carrying to book with me for weeks. I mean literally putting it in my bag so I can pop it open any time, to reread one of the 30 pages I've folded over about Eva Hagberg Fisher's journey to learn how to both love herself and be loved. It’s the story of how she endured life-threatening illness while a friend who eventually dies of cancer shows her how to grow deep connections. While it sounds hokey, this book was good medicine for me. I imagine everyone wants to hear they’re worthy of love. I couldn’t help but read pages of the book to my middle school students. I wanted them to hear Eva’s friend say, “The things you think are bad, those are the things that make you lovable.... You don’t have to tie yourself up in knots to be someone else.” I remember every time someone has made this same point clear to me in my own life. It’s a joy to read an entire book that drives home the point that being completely ourselves makes us entirely lovable to some people.