Pondering in the lady den this morning and thinking about how blessed I am with friends. When I was a child my favorite friend was a boy. We were inseparable. Our mothers and fathers were best friends. Someone told me every time she came home from school in the summers she would see my friend and I splashing in a baby pool with our mothers sun bathing close by.

As we got older we spent many days on our bicycles. We rode thousands of miles on our bicycles. Even had a route that we rode religiously. We’d go to the City Pharmacy for lemon sours or to his house his house for a drink of water. At his house, I’d get a glass and he’d drink from a green Coke bottle of water that was always in the fridge. He and his two brothers had their names on their bottles. I always wanted to have a bottle in there.

We once rode home from town in a police car together. My mother was doing her pondering in the porch swing and stroked when the police car stopped and we got out of the back seat. The city library had been robbed and on a bike ride we saw the pile of library books thrown in a creek. I love books and the books that were stolen were large coffee table books full of beautiful photos. Could not understand the callousness of ruining those beautiful books.

In the fifth grade we joined the band, both playing the trumpet. We practiced together all the time and in the sixth grade we became members of the Handley High School Marching Band. Many, many happy football band Friday nights and marching festivals followed us through high school.

I still have my All-State medals where we competed playing duets on our trumpets.

We both had our high school romances and occasionally doubled dated. We went off to college but when our paths crossed we were right back together in our friendship. When his brother died I cried with him and when my daughter died in a car wreck his phone call moved me to tears.

Two years ago he came to visit me on Mother’s Day. No longer a boy on a bike, but a seasoned doctor, close to retirement, driving a beautiful “rich” man’s sports car, a step above the Plymouth Duster he received on his 16th birthday. Obviously very happy in his marriage.

We sat in the dining room talking and he said, “I probably spent more time here than I did at my own house!” Our bikes were a thing of the past but we were immediately transferred to our days of riding bikes. Course we talked of all our bike riding and he told me every time he was late coming home for supper he’d blame it on me.

Never really had that special girl friend till I moved to Alexander City in my middle twenties. I met her casually several times at church but our friendship was cemented when we parked by each other at the city library one day. We got out of our cars at the same and struck up a conversation. “Guess what,” I said, “I’m pregnant.” “So am I,” she says. We got all excited. “I’ve got on Chief’s Levi’s,” I say. Then she starts laughing and says, “I have on my husband’s Levi’s.” It was a friendship made in heaven glued together with our love of books and reading.

She’s always there, even when I don’t realize I need her. She was the first call I made when Rosalyn was killed in a car wreck. She started weeping but I understood her words, “I’ll be there shortly.” Came straight over, didn’t notice her shoes didn’t match till she had to stop at the red light in town.

Woke up the day of Rosalyn’s funeral and she was in Rosie’s room unobtrusively ironing the boys’ and Chief’s shirts for the funeral. She was my rock during this nightmare.

When she had a crisis in her family she called at 3 AM and I tore over to her house. She held my hand tightly while she wept. My shoes matched but I didn’t take time to comb my hair because she needed me.

And when Chief died she consoled me as only a soulmate can. Six months later I consoled her when she lost her husband.

When we have weekends together we wear our matching grinch pajamas and laugh ourselves silly!

Merry Christmas, friends!