This past weekend, the road I traveled to take the girls to their pool party led me to the home of my best friend from childhood, Martha. She is as "Martha" as they get - not so much in the Stewart sense of the word, but more in the Mary & Martha sense (and yes, her sister really is Mary and very true to form). When I popped into her kitchen, you would have thought I was the long lost queen of Prussia. I hadn't seen her in probably 2 years though we live 15 minutes apart. She proclaimed, "I think of you all the time!" and I know this is true because I think of her all the time too - someone who is so important to you in your childhood years is always there in your memory.
I thought it would be a quick pop-in, but it turned out to be and hour and a half visit, and only this short because they were getting ready to leave for vacation that afternoon and I had a splitting headache. We talked about the past year, the things our kids were doing, the trips we had been on, the difficulties of getting older. I remember playing with "Barbies" in her purple bedroom and we both dreamed that someday, we ourselves would be married with families and live in Grand Rapids. And what do you know, it came true? And now, the playmate who I had dreamed with about our families has had a hysterectomy? Am I that old? An especially great thing about Martha is how she became the Nurse she was destined to become, and how we eventually always talk about health issues, and it was good because now I know of some things I need to attend to. I found out other things from her like how one of her daughter's good friends had been killed tragically during the past week, and how one of her daughters doesn't like math, how she has actual blue hydrangeas in her back yard, and how she doesn't even know what a blog is. We sat on the benches that her Dad made until the bright sun made us hot. She had to get ready to go, and I had to go back home.
I left happy just knowing that she was still there.
