Thursday, November 12, 2009

Best Friends Forever

The way life works, you just never know who will end up being your best friend forever. How was I to know when I walked into the governor’s mansion selling seafood over thirty years ago that Holly and I would bond for life? She became one of the only friends I could share my family with while living in Atlanta. Only Holly enjoyed the river rafting and camping with my kids that I needed a buddy to do. My kids are grown with kids of their own, but sharing them meant baring and sharing our souls. The people who help raise your kids are soul sisters (and brothers) in a special kind of eternal way.

Elaine and I became bonded forever in September of nineteen sixty-five. With forty-four years of friendship, she’s my longest lasting soul sister and my only blood sister with different parents than I had. My four other sisters shared my blood by default. Her children are my children; my children are her children. She fixed me up with Richard; I fixed her up with her husband, Bubby. I was with her when she received her last child into her arms; she was with me when Richard received his new heart. How could we not attend each other’s children’s weddings?

Getting to Holly’s we were driving toward a hurricane, which didn’t bother Richard who told Jack that was because he (Richard) travels with a hurricane. The trip to Alabama began with an ominous cloud cover, but by the end of the drive, at the end of the day, we were headed directly into the blinding sun. We’re now in Alabama for the wedding of Elaine’s oldest child, Briton. The ceremony is scheduled to be outside at the water’s edge, so we’re grateful that the weather is promising to cooperate.

Elaine, Bubby, Richard and I began our reunion with meeting for a meal at a very quaint old restaurant in Point Clear called the Wash House. For the first time, I tasted tomato grits, which were even better than cheese grits. The service was wonderful, and the food was very good, but we could have just as soon eaten at a McDonald’s for as much attention as we gave the fare -- except for Bubby’s insistence that we go to a restaurant without a bunch of kids. After raising six of the little critters, Bub wants a respite before the next set of grandkids comes along.

After dinner, we returned to The Grand Hotel which is hosting the wedding. Here we sat for hours --outside, with a breeze blowing off the bay, warming ourselves around patio fire pits, toasting our friendship, our spouses, our children, and our grandkids. The long-burning glow of our memories could probably have kept us warm, but the fire was, none-the-less, nice.

Elaine is talking about retiring in less than two years. To begin this new phase in our lives, we’re planning a European victory trip together. Elaine is a very artistic person with little time to nurture her talents. So, to give her extra incentive to carry out her retirement plan, I’m plying her with promises of classes in all the arts and crafts practiced by our new and very talented friends in Coker Creek.

Like the Girl Scout song says, “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, but the other’s gold.”