BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

There we are** – Jane and me on her porch one summer during college.  Friends since Brownies, we’ve always had a warm, respectful and sturdy relationship, interrupted by years at a time but never diminished.  Recently she sent photos of a family reunion – her four kids and their spouses and all their kids. And some things she had written.  Beautiful things. Especially about her parents.  I knew them well; I spent so many Saturday nights at their house, even going to church with them in the morning.  They never ate breakfast before Communion but Jane’s mom always insisted that I eat something even though I was going with them  After all, I wasn’t taking Communion so why not?.

A "nice Jewish girl" in a milltown suburb (here I"m on the right and Jane on the left, I had no Jewish friends; Jane, Catholic, was my dearest.  What might have been a huge cultural gap was just a curiousity; differences in our lives but not in how we felt about one another.  We’d always sworn to be at one another’s weddings; I’ll never forget her beautiful one in the cathedral at Notre Dame.  Years later, when it was my turn, Jane was living in Dallas and already a mother; she just couldn’t make it.
Then, just days before our wedding, she called.  "Do you still have room on that boat of yours?" (We got married on a boat.)  "I have to keep our promise- I’m coming!"  It was so great and meant so much.  Just as she knew it would.
That was 36 years ago; almost twice the age we were when the top photo was taken.  But it doesn’t matter.  The blessing of shared memories — of remembering each other’s parents and the Girl Scout trip to New York and her first love, who died in Vietnam — and mine, who ran off, perpetually stoned, to Santa Barbara —  those memories make her part of so much of who I was and who I’ve become.  What a gift to me that the one whose friendship blessed me was so blessed herself – generous and fine — helping me to be what she knew I had to be when I wasn’t sure myself what that was…not at all.

***NOTE: In order to observe the Sabbath, this post was written in late October and set to post on Saturday morning November 17th.