Friends

We all have acquaintances we have amassed during our walk through life. People we nod to and engage in a brief conversation when thrown together at the same place at the same time. We tolerate some, genuinely like others, and a few, if we are lucky, become part of a deeply bonded friendship. The older I get, the more I value those wonderful people I call friends.

My first one came in kindergarten. God help me, but I cannot remember her name, even while staring at a photograph my mother took, but I do remember the bond we shared: finger painting was cool, jacks were hard, Miss Muncil, our teacher was like the best grandma, and Charles P. was a pest. She taught me that common interests were fun.

In 4^th grade, I remember a girl named Helen who was badly scarred from severe burns. She cried when I held hands with her because no one else wanted to touch her. She taught me that a kind word or deed can do so much to help heal a heart. I only remember her in 5^th grade…I don’t recall her before or after and assume she moved. I often wondered if kids got kinder or more cruel as she got older. Did she find a wonderful man who could see past her outer shell and have compassionate children who grew up knowing that different is not to be shunned? Do others value her now, the same way I did in 1960 or 1961? I hope and pray she has had a fabulous life.

From 4^th though 6^th grades, I had a friend named Norine who was the only Jewish child in a sea of Catholics, Episcopalians, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists. For her 11^th or 12^th birthday, her mom invited me to come to dinner or lunch for Norine’s birthday (I was the only guest) and served her best Kosher spaghetti. From Norine, I learned that people of other “unusual” religions were no different from me, even if their customs were the opposite of mine. Writing this prompted me to try and find her, and I think I found her on Facebook and shot her a message. Grinning like crazy here. I have been lucky enough to re-connect with three other elementary school friends and have a photo of the three of us taken almost 3 years ago. We laughed and talked and looked at old photos that night. What a fun time it was.

Junior high school (grades, 7 thru 9) brought more friends, and also teenage trauma, as my family switched school districts halfway through the first year, and I was ‘forced’ to leave my friends behind. Fortunately, I made new ones, and still have a few of them. We moved again halfway thru my sophomore year of high school, and the find new friends cycle started anew. Not surprisingly, there were a few kids from my old elementary and junior high schools, and although some of us had not been close friends before, just seeing a familiar face made that teenage angst of being possibly not liked a little easier. Most of us kept up with each other right after graduation, but as the world turns so do our lives, and we mostly lost track of each other as we moved for college, work, married, had children, and our lives started revolving around our own little nuclear families. Neighbors, parents of our childrens’ friends, co-workers, and friends of our partners became our new friends, and because of the lessons we learned from our childhood friends, our circles became even wider.

Then at some point in life you receive that dreaded high school reunion invitation in the mail, and those danged teenage insecurities rear their ugly heads. My insecurities came with my 45^th reunion invitation a few years ago. Initially, I was excited and almost giddy. Newly retired, I jumped in and volunteered to help track down and make calls to classmates who had not responded. I was part of the crowd that melded unnoticed into the background…making those calls to kids who were way cooler than me, albeit 45 years ago, required an enormous amount of courage. Some of them didn’t remember me at all, but a surprising number did, and wanted to talk, even though we had exchanged all of a dozen words in three years of school. I started to form new old friendships. The reunion weekend arrived, and although I approached it with much trepidation (after all, I was a lot older and heavier than then), but quickly found my fears unfounded. My Facebook friends expanded, and I am so enormously elated to say that my true friends also multiplied.

We are now a couple years away from a 50^th reunion, but a number of us haven’t waited for it to get together again. We gals try to have lunch monthly, weather and proximity permitting. Last year a group of us got together for a motorcycle, classic car, and general “fun run” long weekend. Another is planned for this year, and as long as we are able, plan on making it an annual event. I adore these people. They bring me delight every day, and as we age, lose parents, spouses, siblings, become grand and great-grandparents, face illnesses, trials, and tribulations, we seem to be growing closer and more dear to each other.

So, my advice to you is take a chance and look up some friends from childhood. In this age of the Internet, it isn’t all that hard, and I can vouch for the richness of the reward when you connect anew and make an old acquaintance a new friend and make an old friendship even deeper. As we sang in Brownies, “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other, gold.” Here's to hearing from Norine.