A couple of weeks ago I was running errands and decided I needed a new wreath for my front door.
I was near Target and stopped to look, but no luck so off I went to Home Goods. If you are anything like me, you could spend hours in either store browsing through the isles looking for something “You just can’t live without”. I’m sifting through the wreaths, and I get a phone call, (a call, not a text) from my bestie’s sister telling me she is in the ICU at a nearby hospital.
WHAT??? We just had dinner last weekend, and although she said she wasn’t feeling great, I never would have imagined she would be in the ICU this weekend.
When I heard the news, I felt my heart drop to my stomach. She has been a constant in my adult life. I got teared up and thought “this can’t be happening”. My first instinct was to rush to the hospital but since I’m not officially her family, I knew that it was highly unlikely that the hospital staff will let me in to see her.
That evening I started reminiscing about our friendship. We met when our oldest sons were in 2nd grade, and we laugh that when she first met me, she thought I was Egyptian. It must have been because I was a co-room mom, and we had spent a significant amount of time designing an Egyptian themed board. Or was it my olive skin? Who knows, but that was the start of a long friendship where we shared many laughs, cried together, and talked about some hard life topics.
In thinking of our relationship, I have realized that she consistently brings out the fun, silly side of me. I annoy her with my terrible driving, we have taken over 18 trips together, we have run half-marathons, tried numerous exercise classes, scrapbooked together, planned parties, decorated graduation cakes, taken fly fishing lessons, golf lessons, traded mama parenting tips, shared more than one bottle of wine and have spent more hours than I can count laughing about “remember when we….”.
Another thing we have in common is our husbands do not find our antics anywhere near as funny as we do.
She helped take care of my two older boys, when I was in New Mexico caring for my dying mom. She was there for me when my youngest went through a health challenge, helped me keep my oldest in check, and invited me for Christmas dinner the day after my dad passed away because I just couldn’t gather up the energy to celebrate. Actually, this list just goes on and on!
As a young mom I had lots of rules, and she was more laid back about the little things. An example of this is that while I as away caring for my mom, she helped my husband with our two older boys and while she was caring for them, introduced them to junk food Friday night dinner. My guys couldn’t believe there was such a thing as dinner without something green. Although I wasn’t there to witness it, I can imagine the smile and gleam in my boys’ eyes when they realized that she was dead serious.
She loves animals and over the years, I have witnessed her caring for snakes, rabbits, four dogs (at one time), a huge fish tank, and cats (in fact one of the fattest cats I’ve ever laid my eyes on).
She is one of my girl’s weekend girls and we have shared countless beer-ritas and grapefruit martini’s when celebrating each other’s birthdays.
What began as a leisurely afternoon shopping for a wreath turned into an evening of my pausing and reminiscing about all the fun times we have had over the years.
As I’ve been writing this blog, I think I could write a book about all our adventures. Hum, now there’s an idea! I am very fortunate to have her in my life and although she’s home now, she is still not completely recovered. I pray every day that she gets her energy back because we have lots of adventures on our bucket lists that we want to do “once we retire”.
Action Step: Reach out to an old friend and plan a fun outing so you can later reminisce about “remember when…”
