When we were sent away from our dorms and finished the semester from our parents’ houses, I started a job at an assisted living facility in the next town over. Among my many duties, I screen every visitor for COVID-19 when they enter and exit the building. But I spend most of my time answering the phone and transferring it to one of the managers or residents in the building.

There is one woman who I am constantly getting calls for. The facility I work for specializes in dementia care and this particular resident lives in our severe dementia unit. She gets a handful of calls a day, but there is one woman who calls every day, without fail. When I see her name on the caller ID, I’m already typing in the code to transfer her. Every time someone calls to speak with this resident, I think about how popular she must be and how many friends she must’ve made growing up.

One Sunday late in May, I got a call for her. I transferred it like normal. Half a second later, I get a call from the woman who calls the most. She asked to be transferred and I had to say, "I’m sorry, someone just got on the line with her. Can you call back later?"

"You can just put me on hold until she finishes. She has dementia, she only talks for a couple of minutes anyway," is all she said. It never occurred to me that the conversations were short. I always pictured the resident yapping away on the phone while the other residents were in line waiting to speak to their loved ones. But it wasn’t for hours. It was for five minutes, at most.

Five minutes doesn’t seem like a lot. That’s only thirty-five minutes a week. Over a whole year, the woman spent about thirty hours on the phone with her friend. That’s a little more than a day. Outside the walls of the facility, a person who spends one day with you a year is basically a stranger. But to that resident, that is her best friend in the whole world. In modern life, I see people always looking for an hour or two to be able to go out for coffee or drinks with a friend. After not seeing each other, since we’re swamped with work and home life, you need extended time to catch up. But maybe it isn’t the hour over coffee or wine that makes friendship. Maybe it’s the five-minute daily checkup.

It cost the woman very little to keep being a friend. All it took was the self-discipline to remember to call every day. And it takes a little patience and understanding to hold a conversation with someone with severe dementia. But it was five minutes out of her day. I could spare five minutes to call a friend. I could spare ten or twenty if I really tried. But I’ve never considered that as an option. For me, it’s either I have two or three hours to call a friend or I shouldn’t bother trying.

The most important thing I’ve learned is that friendship isn’t measured by time. I spend more time with the same drivers every evening during rush hour traffic than that woman did with her friend in my facility. That doesn’t mean the man in front of me in the Honda Civic is my best friend, or a better friend than her. In fact, I can’t think of a better friend than that woman, who calls everyday and spends more time on hold with me than she does talking to her friend. Her friendship is in the dedication. It’s in the refusal to forget about her friend, who probably doesn’t remember who she is most days. Maybe before the pandemic, she would come to visit and talk for longer. But despite the distance and social distancing, she makes sure to be there.

When I think about who my friends are, I think about who would take five minutes out of their day to talk to me. My list of people who wouldn’t waste five minutes with me is much shorter than the list of people who would. This is true for you as well. Friendship isn’t found in extravagant gestures or Christmas gifts. It isn’t in weekends away or nights out. It’s in the little moments. Five little ones.

It’s always stressed how kids should call their parents who live in senior communities. We hear horror stories where adult children put their parents in a home and then forget about them until the funeral. But what about friends? I get hounded everyday by residents who want to know if they’ve gotten any mail. Their faces light up when I hand them an envelope, especially with the pandemic putting the facility on lockdown. These letters are rarely ever from family members, who usually call or wave from the window when they drop off supplies. The mail truck drops off a bin of messages and cards from friends every day. While people should call their parents and grandparents, friends should do the same. All it takes is five minutes. If a daily call is too much commitment, write a letter once a week. Find a senior care complex near you and ask if they have a pen pal program. If they don’t, then start one. Become a friend to a resident. Five minutes may not seem like a lot to you, but they don’t have many more "five minutes" left. You might learn a thing or two. I know I have.

I always said I didn’t have friends, because there wasn’t a group of girls who walked around the mall with me or that I had slumber parties with on Friday nights. But looking at a clock, I can never be short of friends. It’s already broken up into five-minute intervals, just for this purpose. In an hour, I can have twelve friendships bud or continue blooming. But really, who’s counting?