This is an ode to my best friend. I met her many years ago when I was two-years-old. I was an only child, but there were three small girls next door. The middle girl was my age. Well, SHE said she was born in July, and I was born in August. She rubbed it in throughout our long relationship. She was always the older kid, but I was taller. Toni and I became long term friends.
I recall their family was different from mine. They got a BABY boy when we were three or four. Madeline, the mother of my best friend, lined us all up on a dilapidated, old couch so we could play with the new baby. We thought maybe Santa brought him. We didn’t really play with him. We passed him back and forth until he fell asleep. Then, Madeline-the-mom would take him to his little bed in another part of the house. We’d all tumble out of the dining room where the couch was to go out to dig in the dirt.
Madeline’s husband was very strict. His tall, skinny bones worked long hours in his own business, a plumber. He was an angry guy with strong arms and a soft heart. He loved his kids, but he was reared with corporal punishment. He scared me.
Here’s the lineup today. I’ve lived in six different states. Toni and her family continue to live with my best friend. We continue to stay in touch. Our lives, very different. But I always knew Toni as my friend. We talked on the phone before they were cell phones.
I supported some of her times with challenges in her home. She got her first child while in an educational program. I went to Ohio State to become a French teacher and fell in love the second year out of OSU. I got married. She was already married. For a while my friend did well, but her husband’s drinking interrupted their lives.
She refused to divorce him. Both she and her husband are Catholic to this day. He gave up drinking and became an excellent manager, taking over his dad’s business, while I fell in love with a guy who worked for the government. We moved to a small town in Wisconsin, where I finished my master’s in counselor education. I finished my thesis and had a baby boy on the same day. His brother, three-years-old, repeatedly told me, as I gained a large stomach, “I don’t want a baby.” However, when he got to see his little brother, he sang another tune. “That’s MY baby,” he voiced loudly, even if our new precious child was sleeping.
My best friend stayed in touch while my marriage fell apart. My husband decided he no longer wanted the boys and me and moved in with a new, taller, more elegant lady. I sobbed. I called my best friend. She helped me through the agony that comes when you happen to see your husband and the new woman on your way to work.
I’m not going to bore you with the details and ending, yet there’s more to my story. I suggest you might want to call your best (or most memorable) friend. Tell her or him you are ok or not ok. Tell her you are there for her.
Now pick up the phone and call your friend, whether nearby or far away. We need our friends. They are precious.