Rites of Friendship

I've always been blessed to have wonderful, dear, very best friends. Other people collect stamps, or napkins, or knickknacks, but I surround myself with fun, funny, smart, trustworthy, and interesting buddies. And I am sentimental about every single one of them.  Recently, my very first best friend Shelly came back into my life after a thirty year absence.

Shelly and I were neighbors when we were round little two-year-olds. So much about us was different from one another. Shelly was a petite brown-eyed and brown-haired cherub. She was an only child with divorced parents and a tiny white toy poodle named Buffy. Shelly had a swing set in her backyard. I was a stocky bossy blonde who lived in a home crowded with four older sisters and two big dogs. My parents were still married, and we most definitely did not have a swing set. But as much as we were different, we shared a zest for play and giggling and running up and down our block. Our lives were all about make-believe and were defined by rich and wonderful experiences. One moment we were cowgirls rustling cattle, the next we were clinging to one another screaming, “Boogiemen!” as the semi-trucks roared by. Together we discovered the rules and joys of friendship and we became inseparable.

Both of our families eventually moved away from that block, that neighborhood, that little rural town. We turned to letter writing and occasional visits, and our friendship remained mostly intact until the intervals became months, then years, then decades.

All these years without Shelly, I always thought of her especially at Christmas. As I decorate the tree, my favorite ornament reminds me of our friendship. The ornament adorned a gift Shelly sent me many, many years ago (I no longer remember what that gift was). Now that Shelly is back in my life, I place even more value on the friendship that ornament represents.