Thirty-year Friends

I saw the following on a Facebook posting:
“Best Grey’s Anatomy quote: ‘If I killed someone you would be the person I would call to come help me drag the body across the floor.’ ”

Last Thursday’s blessing was dinner with friends –– the kind that fit the Grey’s Anatomy quote. We’ve been friends since our eldest children were born. Most of us first met at baby swim lessons the winter of 1978.

Thursday was one woman’s birthday and our hostess put Care Bear candles on the Weight Watcher’s pie she served, saying her middle son’s birthday was a Care Bears party, “and you were all there.” It made turning 59 just a little easier to take!

We’ve been through amazing joys in thirty-plus years of friendship. We’ve laughed until we’ve cried and sometimes cried until we’ve laughed.

Our children have grown up, and mostly fled the nest – though several of them have boomeranged back and forth between home and independence. All have given us more joy than we ever could have predicted. We’ve praised accomplishments like college graduation, grad school, and even a PhD. And weddings and engagements (she has a website for her wedding!) and the births of grandchildren. We’ve marveled at the adults our children have become and the new relationships we enjoy with them. Some – actually the two most introverted of our children – have moved many states away, prompting smother mother worries about one living in the path of the DC sniper, and another in the path of not one, but three hurricanes, among other things. But there has also been unspeakable sadness, too. One of those babies at swim class was killed in a car accident, accidents and health concerns have troubled several of our children, and “failure to launch” has special meaning for some of us.

Personally, we’ve experienced separation, divorce, and remarriage, times of unemployment, the death of our parents, and breast cancer. We’ve celebrated new jobs, the completion of college degrees, and most recently, retirement. Our conversation has switched from potty training and getting a child to sleep through the night, to menopause and calcium supplements, and bifocals and fears about memory loss.

These are heart friends – we haven’t needed help dragging bodies across the floor – but we know who we’d call if the need arose. I am blessed by these special women friends – sisters of the heart if not by blood.