My family, what’s left of them, and my friends. the very select group of people who have been my friends for 20–30 years. They “assure” me. But, they never promise me that things will turn out right; w that things will turn out O.K., but they promise, not in words so much but in their actions and their sticking by me through all these years, that whether things turn out O.K. or not, they will be there for me; no matter how I want to handle it.