This blog site is about the ups and downs of growing older.  There are many ups…and a few downs.  One “down” exists in the goodbyes…to businesses, to careers, to roles you have played in your life…and, unavoidably, to people.

My best friend died two years ago.

Trish and I weren’t best friends in the traditional way.  We did not call each other daily.  We did not feel the need to share the boyfriend breakups, the parental fights, and our body insecurities.  We were not bridesmaids in each other’s weddings. We didn’t share the same religion…she Protestant, me Catholic.  We didn’t share the same outdoor interests…I spent my time with tennis and softball, she with the Westernaires, a horse-riding club.  Our families did not interact outside of an occasional hello or nod of acknowledgement that they were neighbors.  We were in different grades in school, so did not share classes.  We didn’t double date.  We didn’t share our aspirations, our career goals, our future plans.  Trish and I shared one thing…our childhood.

I met Trish when I was 7 and she was 6.  Our family had just moved to a house on the side of a mesa in Golden, Colorado. Trish’s family lived two lots down. I remember it was cold outside on that day when I first saw her.  So cold that, over my sweater and slacks combo, I had donned a jacket with a hood, the latter of which tightly secured to my head protecting my neck and ears.  Exploring our new neighborhood, I walked to the side of our house and peered down toward the creek.  There I saw a couple of girls playing in a back yard. One was wearing, what I remember to be, a beautiful winter outfit – something I thought an ice-skater might wear.  She looked up, pointed at me, and exclaimed “Hey, who is that guy?”  I instantly took offense, as I was decidedly not a guy and no one had ever mistaken me for one!  I don’t recall ever wearing that hooded jacket in that fashion again (hood up); and I don’t remember her ever wearing anything so “girlie” again.  But that odd moment is etched in my memory.  I remember nothing more about that day.

Over the course of 10 years, Trish and I were conjoined.  Whenever possible we would spend hour upon hour by the creek behind our houses.  Her dad had erected a wooden bridge, which took us safely across the water to the fallen log that became our clubhouse.  From this location, we would plan our escapades.  We waded in the creek; we swung across the water in tire swings.  When we weren’t playing by the creek, we were climbing the path up Table Mountain, or exploring Golden… walking everywhere.  When weather kept us indoors, we could be found in her basement playing 500 Rummy while listening to her mother’s  John Davidson or Engelbert Humperdink LPs (translated as long-playing vinyl albums, for those of you who are not “people of age”).

Our idyllic early years were chock full of wonderful times.  I was in awe of my friend.  To me she lived an exotic life.  Her family traveled to far off places for vacations.  My family’s vacation plans consisted of trips to see our large extended family in Missouri.  As a young teen-aged girl, Trish accompanied her mother and sister to France.  When she returned, she regaled me with her stories of the European boys, soon to be men…her mother chaperoning.  As she shared her stories and pictures, I felt like I was listening to her version of La Dolce Vita (Yes, I now know that movie was set in Italy, not France – but anything in Europe was La Dolce Vita in my young eyes).

In high school, the Arcadia of our childhood began to take a turn…at least for Trish.  Her parents divorced.  Her dad moved to an apartment for a while. Then one day, my mother called for me and told me that something was happening at Trish’s house.  Police cars and an ambulance had arrived.  Mom encouraged me to call Trish and invite her over in case she needed to get out of the way.  When Trish arrived at my door, she quietly told me her mom had taken her own life.  This moment and the images of her grief afterwards are also etched in my memory.

Our lives began to diverge.  Trish, her dad and sister moved a couple of times.  I went to college.  Trish joined the army.  Life changed.  We would write each other occasionally.  I remember receiving a letter with a beautiful picture of my friend with her newborn daughter.  I hadn’t even known she was pregnant.

Trish went on to be a bit of a renaissance woman.  She held at least 2 master’s degrees.  She was a bilingual, a mechanical engineer, an accomplished baker, a ballroom dancer, an avid knitter.  She was a student of religion. Throughout her life I knew her to dabble in Protestantism, Catholicism, Jehovah Witness(ism?) and finally Judaism, which she studied with a passion.  I believe her rabbi was impressed and amazed at her level of devotion to her new-found faith.  She had wit; she had wisdom; she had a unique and wonderful sense of humor and sense of self.  She could spend hours devising little ditties to celebrate some event (like my arrival at her home) then singing her compositions with joy and abandon (and some fun little wiggle dance moves)…ta da!

Throughout the years, she changed her persona many times.  She also started to go by her middle name, the name of her mother.  Many knew and loved her as Eileen.  But she was always Trish to me. She would sign her notes Trish the Dish.

Why we did not share the everyday ordinary events in our lives, I don’t know.  There are many parts of her life that I know nothing about.  Absolutely nothing.  She did not share the dark moments of her life with me, nor me her.  We would share the glory of our lives…the births of our amazing children and her marriages (she had a few!). But we would connect, catch up, smile a couple of times a year.  Well, to be honest, most of the time it was ONLY once a year…on my birthday.  On my birthday, Trish would ALWAYS call me.  I often forgot her birthday, but when I did remember, I would pick out a card to send her.  She never forgot.  I would look forward to the phone ringing, then picking it up to hear her distinctive singsong voice happily squealing “Happy birthday Mimi!”  It was during these annual calls that we would catch up on the divorces, the children, the new loves, the old stories… always we would reminisce about our time in Golden.  Occasionally she would call and announce a visit.  She came to see me after the birth of my first child and stayed for a couple of days.  She had married a man who was a Jehovah Witness so had converted to his faith.  When a Jehovah Witness stopped by my house to “spread the word”, I remember watching Trish happily conversing with our visitor while I sat on the couch and smiled.  Memory etched.

She came with her two young daughters one summer.  We sat in the backyard of my Colorado home and made our children listen to our stories as we reminisced. They all should know the stories by heart about our silliness at Hesteds (a local department store); our fondness for gravy fries at the diner above Foss Drug Store; and the “let’s put on a show” moments.

Then time passed.  The occasional letter and photograph kept me abreast of her addresses, her studies, her kids. It wasn’t until many years later that she called (on my birthday) and asked if she and her son could come to my (now Florida) home for Thanksgiving.  Absolutely.  Everyone is welcome at our home on Thanksgiving – its kind of my thing.   Yet, I admit to having felt a bit worried.  The physical and emotional distance between us had grown.  Would it feel odd?  Would our emotional distance tarnish our storied past?

Thanksgiving came and so did Trish and her son.  We laughed, we cried, we hugged, we MADE PIES!  We connected.  But it wasn’t until the day after Thanksgiving that I understood the depth of our connection.  I was watching TV in my bedroom.  My husband had already left for work.  I didn’t want to face the kitchen aftermath of our rather large gathering the night before.  Not quite yet.  There was a knock on my door.  Trish came in, in her pajamas, with two cups of coffee.  She handed one to me and then climbed into the bed and under the covers.  We sipped our coffee and watched the morning news in silence…until she said “You know what would taste good with this coffee?  PIE!”  That was when I knew.  This woman was my muse, my buddy, my sister from another mister, my BFF.

After that holiday, Trish and I made more of an effort to share our lives with each other.  I found I would be thinking about her often.  In fact, every time I would shave me legs, I began to realize that I was thinking about her!  It got to be funny…shave my legs…think of Trish…smile.  When I mentioned this to her, she laughed and postulated that we had probably shaved for the very first time when we were together.  Later on that year, I received a free box of razors in the mail.  I thought it was a promotion.  It was a gift from Trish.  We would do that…send each other small mementos.  Once I received a package from her and reached in to find a marionette of a Mexican bandit (definitely not PC!).  I knew immediately that it was from Trish.  She had a similar marionette as a child.  We had ruined one of her mother’s sheets making a backdrop of the desert for our puppet show starring…you guessed it… the bandito.  Included in the box was a picture of a beautiful contented Trish floating in a pool with a happy looking guy.  I told my husband, “Trish is in love”.  She was.

A little over three years ago, Trish and her beloved new husband, contacted my husband and I with news that she had been diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer.  I visited her in Maryland for her first round of chemotherapy and was with her for one of her last ones.  I wanted to be there.  I needed to be there.  Less for her…more for me.  I needed to begin the process of saying goodbye to this lifelong (50+ years) friendship.

During the last two years of her life, in an effort to bring her some cheer, I searched for old photographs of us. I have only one photograph of Trish and me during our glory days.  And that one shows a gloomy pre-teen (me) sitting in my Dad’s convertible.  He must have taken us for a ride in his new automobile.  This was not necessarily a picture showing the bonds of friendship we shared.   But, the funny thing is, I remember our moments as if they were photographs.  A mental Polaroid of cooking unimaginable and inedible concoctions in her mother’s kitchen.  Click.  Another of the two of us on the teen line, talking between the busy signal tones. Click. (NOTE: I do realize that there may be many reading this who have no idea what a teen line was, and that is okay.  But many may not know what a busy signal sounds like..that is NOT okay.)

When her time was near the end, her daughter contacted me and told me to come.  I did not want to interfere in a family moment.  Her daughters encouraged me, saying Trish was asking for me.  These are odd moments, when you sit at the bedside of a loved one…you work at keeping things light…you avoid the unavoidable.  You tell jokes, you reminisce…again. At one point, I sent her daughters and husband out of the room.  Trish and I needed some GT (girl talk) time.  When they left, I looked into those beautifully large, dark Trish eyes, which adorned her jaundiced emaciated body and found my friend.  We held hands.  We cried.  I asked her to save me a seat at the celestial table. She said she would.  She asked me to keep in touch with her children.  I said I would. I asked her to say hi to my brother and hug my mother.  She said she would.  She asked me to think of her often.  I said “Every time I shave my legs!” She reached over and gathered something from the bedside table.  It was a green jade egg…something I recall her father had brought back for her from some trip (to Russia, I think).  She placed it in my hands and said “I want you to have this.  When you hold it, you are holding my heart.” Click.

Trish died on January 17, 2013.  I write this to honor my BFF.  I write this with the jade egg sitting on my desk.  I think I will go shave my legs…and smile.

I welcome posts of from others with stories of BFFs.

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February 15, 2015 – Addition to Blog

I just came across these two videos about centenarians best friends.  Substitute Trish for Alice, and Mimi for Irene and this is how I envision we would have been.

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