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I looked up at the blue sky, feeling, in fact, a burst of energy, but mostly feeling my mother’s presence, remembering why it was that I’d thought I could hike this trail.

—Cheryl Strayed

I’ve met a lot of strong people in my life but no one stronger than my mother.

People say that about their mothers all the time. But consider the life of Dorothy Howell.

Starting when she was three or four, her parents would leave her alone all day in their fifth-floor walk-up in Chicago. When she got hungry, she had to bundle herself up, walk down all those stairs, go to a nearby restaurant, produce a meal voucher, eat, and then walk all the way home. Alone.

At age eight, she was put on a train headed to California. Her parents were getting divorced, so they sent her and her three-year-old sister to live with their paternal grandparents. The little girls made the journey by themselves—no adults. It took four days.

Her grandmother wore long black Victorian dresses. Her grandfather hardly said a word. Their rules were incredibly strict. When my mother dared to go trick-or-treating one Halloween, the punishment was confinement to her bedroom for a full year, coming out only to go to school.

By the time she was fourteen, my mother couldn’t take it anymore. She found a job as a housekeeper for a local family. She looked after the children in exchange for a place to live. She had one blouse and skirt that she washed every night. But the family was kind to her—finally, a little kindness. They encouraged her to keep going to high school.

When Mom graduated from high school, she moved back to Chicago because her mother sent her a letter suggesting that maybe they could be a family again. Despite everything, she missed her mom and wanted badly to be reunited. But when she got there, her mother made it clear that what she really wanted was a housekeeper. Something broke in my mom’s heart forever. Still, she was a good daughter, and we dutifully visited my grandmother a few times a year.

Mom moved into a small apartment, found an office job, and met my dad, Hugh Rodham. They married in 1942 and after World War II had me, followed by my two brothers. We lived in a house in the suburbs. Mom, a homemaker, was a blur of constant energy, cooking, cleaning, hanging laundry, doing dishes, helping us with our homework, and sewing clothes for me. When I was in high school, she made me a dress—white with a print of red roses—that I thought was the prettiest I’d ever seen. She loved us intensely and worked hard to make our childhoods meaningful and fun. We played lots of games, read lots of books, went on lots of meandering walks, and talked about everything under the sun.

Back in the day, kids and their parents didn’t consider each other friends. That’s not how it worked. They were the parents. We were the kids.

But when I look back, there was no question that she was my best friend.

Even as a little girl, I saw how strong she was. She was so competent. When Mom said something, you knew that she meant it. When she told me to stand up for myself with a neighborhood bully, I did. She was so determined that some of her determination rubbed off on me.

She was not a huge personality. She didn’t pound her fists on the table or yell like my dad did—that’s not how she made her presence known. But she knew what she believed. She lived her values. She would do anything for us, and we would do anything for her. All of that made her powerful.

When I got older, the full extent of her loveless, lonely childhood hit me. I wondered if I could have survived such an ordeal with my spirit and dignity intact. She knew that she was worthy of love and decent treatment, even though the world told her otherwise for a long time. How did she hold on to that self-respect in the face of all that disregard? The most important people in her life told her she was nothing. How did she know that wasn’t true? I marveled at the mental strength it must have taken to keep believing that a better day was coming, that she would find her place, that hard work would see her through, that her life had meaning despite how unfair fate had been to her.

When I became a mother myself and discovered how much patience and resilience it requires, I saw my mother’s strength in a new way. She was raised with such neglect, to the extent that she was raised at all. How did she learn how to give my brothers and me such a loving and secure childhood? We talked about this. She said she carefully observed every family she ever met, including that family she worked for as a fourteen-year-old all those years ago. She paid attention to how the parents spoke to each other and to their kids. She saw that gentle firmness was possible and that families could actually laugh together, and not just sit in stony silence. Mostly, she figured it out on her own. It wasn’t hard for her, she said. She loved us and was so happy to be around us, it was easy to show it.

But I know other people whose parents had cruel childhoods and who internalized that cruelty and dished it out to their own kids later. That’s how abuse gets passed on through the generations. That’s probably what happened with my grandmother, in fact. My mom single-handedly stopped that cycle dead in its tracks.

In my experience, as people get older, either they start looking after their parents or their parents keep looking after them. My parents kept looking after me. When they visited, they fussed over me: Did I need a sweater? Was I hungry? I’m generally the one who looks after everyone else, so it was very sweet and rather amusing to have the roles reversed.

We were close. After Bill became Governor of Arkansas in 1979, my parents moved to Little Rock. Dad was retired, and they were ready for a new chapter to unfold, preferably as near to their beloved baby granddaughter as possible.

Dad died just a few months after Bill became President. I begged Mom to come live with us in the White House, but it wasn’t surprising that she said no thank you. She was too independent for that. She did come visit us for weeks at a time, staying in a bedroom on the third floor. She even traveled a few times with Bill, Chelsea, and me on foreign trips.

After I became a Senator and we left the White House, Mom moved close by, to an apartment building in Northwest Washington, D.C. She loved walking around town; going to museums and the zoo (they’re free in Washington!); having dinner with Bill and me a few nights a week; and seeing a lot of my brother Tony, who lives in Virginia just outside Washington with his wife, Megan, and my nephews Zach and Simon and niece Fiona.

A few years later, I asked again, and she finally agreed to come live with Bill and me, because it was getting too hard for her to live on her own. Mom had some heart problems, which meant that unpacking groceries or folding laundry could leave her breathless. She who was always in ceaseless motion now moved gingerly, and she worried about injuring herself.

I was glad that Mom agreed to live with us without my having to fight her on it, but I was ready to fight her on it. Her independence was important, but so were her health and safety. When she still lived alone, there were times I’d be at work in the Senate and realize that I hadn’t heard from her all day and panic a little. Had she fallen? Was she okay? At our house, there were always people around. If Mom moved in, we wouldn’t have to worry as much anymore.

Except it wasn’t as easy as that. We discovered something many parents and children find out late in life: that the balance between them is different once the child is grown and the parent is aging. Mom didn’t want to be mothered; she still wanted to mother. I didn’t want to encroach on her independence and dignity—the thought horrified me—but I also wanted to be straightforward with her about what I thought she could and couldn’t do anymore. No more walking down the basement steps alone; they were too steep, she could fall. She did it anyway. She bristled at any restriction and largely ignored my suggestions. Any time I felt impatient, I reminded myself that I would be just as stubborn as she was.

There was one major fact that kept the balance steady between us: I still needed my mother. I needed her shoulder to lean on; I needed her wisdom and advice. I used to come home from a long day in the Senate—or, in 2007 and 2008, from a day on the campaign trail—and slide in next to her at our kitchen table and let all my frustrations and worries tumble out. Mostly, she just listened. When she gave advice, it always came down to the same basic idea: you know the right thing to do. Do what’s right.

Mom lived with us for five years, and I treasured every day. The whole family did. Our home was a busy place thanks to her. Grandson Zach came by after school to see her all the time. Tony and Megan brought Fiona and Simon over frequently or took Mom back to their home for the weekend. She relished her time with them. She talked to my brother Hugh, who lived in Florida, every single day. Same with Chelsea—not a day went by without a phone call, and every week, Chelsea and Marc came to see her. She enchanted all our friends. Several of Chelsea’s male friends adopted Mom as their honorary grandmother and would stop in to check on her and stay for dinner, debating the finer points of philosophy or The Sopranos. She was good company: quick-witted and well read. The day she died at ninety-two, she was halfway through The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks.

We were so lucky to have her with us for so long. Many of my friends had lost their mothers by then, but here was mine, greeting me every morning and night with a sweet smile and a pat on the hand. I never missed a chance to tell her that I loved her. On a lot of nights, I made the choice to put aside my briefing books for an hour or two so we could watch something on TV (she adored Dancing with the Stars) or have a late dinner together. Briefing books could wait. This time with Mom was precious. I would have given anything to have that kind of time with my dad; I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass me by.

I was grateful for her long, full life, grateful for every moment we shared, grateful that I had the means to care for her the way I did, and grateful for the deep love she shared with Chelsea and the wise advice she gave her. I can’t count the number of people across the country I’ve met who would love nothing more than to have their aging parents living comfortably at home with them. But they can’t afford it, or they don’t have the room. We had the room. We could afford it. I feel extraordinarily lucky for that. We didn’t leave anything unsaid between us. I feel lucky for that, too.

After Mom died, even though I was Secretary of State, I felt just like a little girl again, missing my mother.

Isn’t it funny how that happens.

A British publication once offered a prize for the best definition of a friend. Among the thousands of answers received were: “One who multiplies joys, divides grief, and whose honesty is inviolable.” And “One who understands our silence.” The winning definition read: “A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out.”

—Bits and Pieces magazine

Every single one of these experiences—the joys and struggles of marriage, motherhood, and daughterhood—I have shared with my friends.

My friends are everything to me. Some have been by my side since I was five; I’m still friends with Ernie, who walked with me to kindergarten the first day. They’ve seen me at my worst, and I’ve seen them at theirs. We’ve been through it all: divorces, remarriages, births of children, deaths of parents and spouses. Some of my closest friends have passed away, and I miss them every single day, which makes me value the friends who are still with me even more. We’ve sat at each other’s hospital bedsides. We’ve danced at our children’s weddings. We’ve drunk good wine and eaten good food, gossiped and hiked and read books together. We have, in short, been an indivisible team.

Some of these friends are men, and some are women. And I want to take a moment to celebrate my male friends, who have been in my corner over the years come hell or high water. There are some out there who say women and men can’t really be friends. I can’t understand that. I don’t know what I’d do without the men who challenge me, encourage me, hold me to account, and make me laugh so hard I can’t breathe.

But my girlfriends . . . my girlfriends are something else entirely.

In my experience, there’s a special strength at the heart of friendships between women. We get real with each other. We talk about raw and painful things. We admit to each other insecurities and fears that we sometimes don’t admit even to ourselves.

Here’s an example: I loved motherhood passionately. But there were days when it felt—there’s no other way to say this—very, very boring. I would read the same children’s book twenty times in a row and feel myself become duller. My colleagues were doing interesting, challenging work, and I was at home singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” for the millionth time. I wondered if I was a monster for feeling this way, so I asked my friends. Their verdict: nope, just a normal mom.

When I struggled to get pregnant, I talked to my girlfriends. When Bill and I had trouble in our marriage, I talked to my girlfriends. When I lost the 2016 election, I talked to my girlfriends in a particularly open way about how it felt to fail. I have never hesitated to be honest with them, even if what I had to say was gloomy or blunt. They know who I am deep inside, so I’m never scared of losing their good opinion. There are a lot of people for whom I put on a happy face, but not my friends.

It’s bewildering to me when female friendships are depicted in movies or on TV as catty or undermining. I’m sure there are relationships like that, but in my experience, they’re not the norm. Friendships between women provide solace and understanding in a world that can be really hard on us. The pressure to be a perfect wife, mother, and daughter can be unbearable. What a relief it is to find people you can share it all with and be reassured that you’re doing just fine.

If you’re unconvinced that friends are worth it, consider the data. (Here is where my friends would say, “Of course Hillary has data.”) Studies show that when seniors interact on a regular basis with friends, they have fewer problems with memory and depression, greater physical mobility, and are more likely to get regular checkups. Now that I’m officially in the senior category, I’m holding on even more tightly to my friends. They’re literally keeping me strong.

Making friends in adulthood can be hard for anybody. For Bill and me, there are added complications. Do we let people into our lives who we don’t know very well? What if they just want to get to know us in order to have a good story to tell? We’ve been burned by people who’ve done that. It’s not fun to feel used.

Then there’s the risk that people face when they become our friends. If you go out to dinner with me, your picture might be in the paper. You might be hounded by trolls online. You might lose friends who detest me because of my politics. You might even need to hire a lawyer. I almost want to offer a disclaimer to new friends: these side effects may occur.

It’s for reasons like these that a lot of well-known public figures don’t really make new friends. They close the circle. It’s understandable. And yet I try to keep making new friends. Just in the past year, I’ve become close to a few new people, including a mystery writer I’ve been reading for years who is now my pen pal. For me, it’s worth the risk. I get so much from my friendships: I learn so much, I laugh so much. And it feels really good to build my community, to feel connected to an ever-larger web of people from different backgrounds and different chapters of my life. I don’t want to spend time just with politicians. Who in the world wants that?

I have spent so much of my life in the public eye, keeping a tight hold on what I say and how I react to things, that it is such a relief to have friends with whom I can be vulnerable and unedited. I don’t just enjoy that, I need it. It keeps me sane.

It comes down to this for me: I don’t want to live a narrow life. I want to a live a big, expansive one. I think of the poet Mary Oliver’s question about what each of us plans to do with our one wild, precious life. To me, that answer includes staying open to new friends—hearing their stories and sharing mine in turn.

There’s a special group of women I’ve met over the years I want to mention: other First Ladies, women Senators, and Secretaries of State. I wouldn’t say we’re intimates, but we know and understand one another in a way few others do. We know what it’s like to see our husbands attacked and our marriages questioned relentlessly and have to explain that to our children. We know what it’s like to be outnumbered in a vastly male-dominated field and to stay dignified and cheerful despite being patronized or talked over on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter what political party we belong to. We’re connected in a deeper way.

It reminds me of what Sandra Day O’Connor, who for a long time was the only woman on the Supreme Court, said when Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined her there: “The minute Justice Ginsburg came to the court, we were nine justices. It wasn’t seven and then the women. We became nine. And it was a great relief to me.”

The women who have walked the paths I’ve walked have been a relief to me, too. And I hope I’ve been the same to them.

I don’t believe any of us gets through life alone. Finding meaning and happiness takes a village. My friends have been my village. I wouldn’t have it any other way.