Friends are one of life’s extraordinary gifts. They aren’t souls that gravitate toward us because they are part of our family, a work associate, or some other mandatory connection that you enjoy (or not). They enter our lives randomly, and the connection is immediate. Some call it chemistry, and there is definitely that. There’s an ease in their presence, an absence of a need to try too hard, and, in most cases, a shared sense of humor. I’ve never had a good friend that I didn’t laugh with … a lot.
My experience has been that friends come in all shapes and sizes and for all different lengths of time. Some will only be with you for a specific part of your life, for as long as needed. I have thought of those friends as my outside circle.
My inside circle has always been something altogether different, and those relationships have, in most cases, passed the test of time. Maybe because I was an only child, my friends took on an elevated importance in my life.
A few days ago, my dear friend Cindi sent me a text asking me to call. At our age, it’s never good if a friend texts you asking you to call. Not to be negative, but it’s usually news they don’t want to deliver via text. And sadly, my suspicions were correct; we had lost our dear friend, Carrie. What compounded the hurt when receiving the news was that I didn’t even know she was ill.
Life is interesting … some friends leave you for whatever reason with a great deal of noise and drama, and some leave so quietly that you didn’t even know they were planning to go.
Carrie came into my life in my young thirties … our girls went to preschool together. Our children were three years old in a class with a fantastic teacher. Four of us mothers gravitated to one another just as our children had. It was a toss-up who was enjoying who more, the kids or us moms. Between us, four women, we had nine children, but this class in particular consisted of my Amy, and then Natalie, Taylor, and Stevie, three girls and one boy.
We all shared a few precious years together, but in the last year of preschool, Mindy, who was Stevie’s mom, developed brain cancer. We lost Mindy in a short time. Losing anyone is hard, but there are a few circumstances that rip your heart out more than others … namely, a child dying or a young mom leaving behind her child.
We grieved Mindy’s loss, feeling we had been granted a stay, but reminded that the gift of enjoying our children grow from babies to toddlers to adolescents and then to adults was not to be taken for granted.
Carrie and I lost touch for several years as our children were not in the same school district, but about ten years ago, we reunited. And just as most old friends find, it was like no time had passed. I enjoyed all her same sweet personality traits like it was yesterday … the way she told a funny story, giggling all the while telling it, her fabulous sense of humor, and the look in her eye as she finished the tale asking only with her expression for your take on the hilarious narrative she had just shared with you. They were such crazy life anecdotes about aging parents and the like, and always full of the ridiculous, so it was great fun to join in and share the humor with her.
Carrie and Paul visited us a year and a half ago, spending a great weekend hiking. As I piece together this story in hindsight, it was perhaps after that visit that she became ill, and my mom also began to decline. As our lives went in separate stressful directions, neither of us knew what the other was up to, and it wouldn’t have been unusual to lose touch for months or even a year. There was that comfort between friends that we would reunite with stories to share when the time was right.
And it was time to reconnect; I had been thinking of her for a month. She was on my list… I’ll never think of my list quite the same after this.
Our original circle of four is now two … a new reprieve, a new lesson about appreciating the gift of watching our children become adults, perhaps marry and become parents.
Cindi said something interesting when we talked, “I imagined this conversation in your blog.” She was correct; this would make its way to my blog about crossroads, change, aging, loss, health, stress, fitness, yoga, renewal … in other words, life.
To Carrie, in the heavens above, I send my love and, sadly, my regret. I know you are beyond such earthly cares, but I hope you know. And to my readers, get on the damn phone and call any loved one you have been thinking about, or text or do whatever you do to share that blessed connection you feel with them.
Namaste
The photo is of my daughter, Amy, on the right, Taylor (Carrie’s daughter) in the middle, Natalie (Cindi’s daughter) on the left, and sweet Mindy behind in the oversized white collar. Like mother(s) … like daughter(s)…always laughing.
