Girlfriends...

Girlfriends 2…

What an awesome find to discover your first besty’s whereabouts. Forty plus years flew by at the speed of light, but every year around our birthday’s I feel her presence and know she’s probably thinking about me too…

My bestest friend was Sue. We were born three days apart and lived one house over from each other. When we were young there were very few experiences we

didn’t share, including the same Sunday morning we were baptized. Our mother’s were friends so it was natural that we did so many things together. We were little tom-boys who loved to climb trees. We made “forts” within her dad’s prized gooseberry bushes and terrorize the boys on the block by throwing rotten fruit at them and calling them names. We were always together and we did everything together. I was contented to be around her and so pleased to be her friend.

I can still hear Sue playing the piano. No one was allowed in the house while she practiced. I wonder if she ever knew I used to curl up next to her front door and daydream while she played. My fingers playing the notes she played on the invisible keyboard before me. When I insisted my own children practice their instruments, I thought often of her diligence...

Then, the saddest day of my life came…The sky was overcast with layers of heavy clouds waiting for the perfect opportunity to unload it’s contents and drench the workers loading the last of the furniture and the boxed remnants of the only home I have known. Every box was methodically labeled to which room it will be placed once the moving truck arrived at our new home and the workers began to unload the van’s contents. Why shouldn’t it rain today? My tears were brimming in my eyes, I wouldn’t allow them to flow as I was feeling a little frightened to leave a home that I knew every inch of, from the first step I took and every square of the sidewalks where I roller-skated, rode my bike, played endless hours of hopscotch and years of walking to school.

I sat in the middle of the front yard with my legs crossed in front of me plucking one blade of grass at a time and as I split the blades of grass into curling little slivers, I wondered what it was going to like to live in the country where most of our neighbors would be seasonal residents and any shopping a teenager would be interested in was miles away. I sat on this lawn hundreds of times making clover necklaces and having Kool-Aid tea parties with my little friends who have lived on this street all their lives too. No tea parties today, nobody was invited and nobody came. The closeness I shared with my friends as children drifted into different directions, as we became teenagers with diverse interests. Some went to public schools, while some of us stayed in parochial schools and all explored new groups of friends…

I don’t remember saying good-bye to Sue on that humid day in June, but I remember saying “Hello” again when I asked her to be my Maid of Honor a few years later. How could I not, she was the one person I knew all my life and it was important to me for her to know how much I loved her.

Ours lives moved forward…college, babies, careers, marriages, and grandchildren… years ticking by with the constant tempo of life’s metronome until recently when I found her again.

“Hi Sue, how have you been? You know what? I’ve really missed you!”