Some things don’t change

Most things change.  Unfortunately even those things we would like to stay forever.  Love never burns with the same intensity, the sky never remains quite as blue.  Circumstances change, people move, life goes on.  Consider yourself lucky if you have more than a handful of “pick up where you left off” people in your life.  I am that lucky.  Now that I am older, I find a small number of special friendships whose lengths number more than thirty and forty years each.

Two of those people, who have touched my life for more years than I remember Noah being when he built the Ark, celebrated special occasions yesterday.

Dee, who turned the hush-hush number, had moved seven miles east some thirty years ago, and upgraded her moniker to Diana.  I still call her Dee.  We don’t see each as often as we should or could, but when we do, we take up where we left off.  No excuses, no apologies, no surprises (other than an occasional birthday bash).  She once delivered a new refrigerator to my home, when as a single mom, mine went on the fritz.  I doubt she even remembers.  Unselfish and generous by nature, that’s just how she is.

School picture from when we met

Another pick-up-where-you-left-off friend’s daughter got married last night.  The skies darkened overhead and a dew weighed heavy on the guests seated outside at the small lagoon.  The few swans normally swimming hovered at the water’s edge.  And there was my friend Sue. — the mother of the bride, seated and looking much like she did years ago.  Admittedly with a better hairstyle.  The beautiful bride, steadied by her father, walked across the sandy shore to a lily covered archway.  Yes, this was the same guy who after I’d divorced and was once again ready to brave the dating scene, handed me a telephone directory.  “Start looking in the A’s for Available,” he’d instructed. 

As the bride stepped under the arch, the weather was no longer a factor.  Her eager smile opened up a hole in the cloudy skies — the happiest bride I’d ever seen.  She jumped up and down as her husband from her seconds-old marriage placed a ring on her finger.  Then she gloriously raised her arms overhead in victory. 

I came home partied out.  I am reminded of How Joe the Bear and Sam the Mouse Got Together, the book I frequently read out loud to my children when they were small.  It was secondhand when I got it, part of the cover gone.  (The book disappeared over the years, but the GAP found a copy of it for me on eBay.)  In short, Joe and Sam met on a street and discussed the possibility of becoming friends.  Seems like everything Joe liked Sam did not, and everything Sam liked Joe did not.  “Oh, I guess we can’t be friends then,” they’d sigh. 

As they were about to give up on this new partnership, the clock struck three in the afternoon.  “Excuse me,” Joe said.  “I have to go get a bowl of ice cream.”

“You eat ice cream at three?” exclaimed Sam.

“Yes, everyday,” said Joe.  (Pretty obvious by his size, probably 1500 grams butterfat.)

“So do I,” admitted Sam. 

“Then we can be friends,” said Joe.  And they walked away together bound for Cold Stone or some other equally sinful parlor.

I think that was the only prerequisite for my friendships.  A bowl of ice cream at three.  Still sounds like a pretty good rule.

Some things don’t change.

Related posts:

1. Memory lane
2. First born
3. Never too old for a sleepover