Day 07 – Best Friend

 Best Friend

 

Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

Dog is man's best friend.

I suppose it's all relative. To an infant, a bottle of milk might be a best friend - To a homeless person it might be a warm blanket.

The point is that just about anything can be a best friend at any given point in time. So what is a "best friend".

I won't go to "wikipedia" for a definition on this because it is simple to define. Right?

Maybe not.

Girls usually proclaim a particular "Best Friend" which, sadly, but honestly, can change as frequently as the weather. It might be Katherine today and Sherry tomorrow. However, for that day, Katherine was the perfect friend because she was there, she listened, she talked, she said what you needed to hear or she didn't say a word and that was what you needed most from her.  I remember my best friend in first grade. Her name was Michelle and we were best playmates on the school grounds. During recess we took turns pushing each other on the swings and we raced each other across the monkey bars. When Jack Steele attempted to bump into me in a rather profane way one day, my best friend took matters into her hands. Literally. She tried to hit him in the stomach but since he was hanging about two feet off the ground, she couldn't reach that high. She got him where it mattered most and punched him in the 'offending' parts.. He dropped off the bars and never crossed them when we were on them.

We were best friends for a year... and then no more. She moved away.

Throughout school I had several more best friends. Never more than one at a time, which is apparently acceptable, but oddly conflicting, I think. Best is best, right?

When I met and eventually married my husband, Joe, he was my first "THE best friend". I like to think that I was his.

Over time, and many years, I met people whom I called my friends. I worked with people that I called friends. My daughter is my dearest friend. It is a moment that has to be magic when you think about your child and you realize that you are talking to them about things that friends talk about. You're not condemning them, and you're actually fascinated at the things they talk to you about. Their outlook and ideas are refreshing and  you wonder when you became the parent of a friend... a real, true, trusted friend. I love my kids! They're incredible people!!

My best friend, not related to me, however, was Patricia.

She wasn't just the kind of friend that was always there, although she was. She wasn't like any best friend I had ever had before. From the first day that I met her, and spent 10 minutes talking to her, it was like we had known each other all of our lives. She loved to garden so we had that in common. She loved to cook and we had that in common. She loved dogs and we had that in common.

Pat had grace and she had charm and she managed to bundle all of that up into a tough as nails, tender hearted, highly educated, dirt digging, southern lady... Her friend Lynn, and my friend also, once said that Pat was honestly a woman who could tell a person to go to hell, and have them be glad to go after asking her for directions - which she gladly would give.

She truly was one of a kind. She and her husband Buddy called often to invite me to dinner. They would never let me pay.

If we weren't eating out, Pat would call me and the conversation usually went like this: " Whatcha doing?"

"Nothing... watching television."

"Oh okay. Got your clothes on?"

"Yeah..."

"Good! Meet me in the street."

That was the cue to get ready for something delicious. We often traded dinners, and the transaction took place right in the middle of the road that separated our houses.

Ours was a comfortable, dependable friendship. I could go into her house without knocking if I chose to. I had a key to her house and she had one to mine. We babysat each other's pets. Once she and Buddy went to Florida to Disney World and I was house-dog sitting. Pat had given me the new key to her backdoor. When I got off work I tried to open the door to let the dogs out but the key, apparently, was the wrong one. There was no other way into the house but to climb into her bedroom window which she had left up about 4 inches. I wasn't tall enough to climb through however. As I was pondering this with her, via mobile phone, our other neighbor came over to see what was wrong. I told him that Pat was out of town and had given me the wrong key. He said that he could probably lift his friend, a slight young man, up to the window and then he could open the back door. I asked Pat if that was okay and she said "Sure... Put him (Chris) on the phone." I did and after a moment, he busted out laughing. Pat had asked him if I was trying to talk him into breaking into her house and she told him not to do it, that I was telling a lie about her giving me permission to go into her house... And of course she did finally tell him to please let me in because she'd given me the wrong key.

That was the kind of relationship we had. We laughed together. Her oldest son had drowned 4 years before I met her. One afternoon she came over and asked if I wouldn't mind putting on some coffee. I was happy to do it and after we'd settled in with a cup  and talked for a few minutes, she looked over at me and with tears in her eye she said " I just needed somewhere to cry today. I miss my son." I instantly began to cry too and she laughed through her tears and said " I needed someone to cry with me, too...I knew you were that person." She didn't want someone to tell her to not cry, or to try to calm her into not crying, as people do when you get upset. She said she needed to cry so her soul would feel a little better... I understood. Sometimes it feels wonderful to cry - like a sweet, gentle rain that rinses off the dust and soot from living. Sometimes crying over the ones we miss the most, the ones we love the most, clears off the mist of time that dims our memories. It washes off the years. So we boo-hooed together. I over a young man I had never met, and she over her first born, taken all too soon.

Pat had all kinds of medical issues and there were days and weeks when all she could eat was soft food. At her request I made chicken and dumplings, sweet potato soup, cheesy grits, oyster stew... homemade vegetable beef soup and cornbread and I know she loved me for it. Yes, she told me so, but there was something in her face that said " I appreciate you."

And that went both ways. She didn't hesitate to tell anyone and everyone, that I, me... was her best friend in the whole world, and that I had been the best friend she'd ever had. To me, to hear that from her, was a badge of honor.

Pat got very sick in February, 2009, and it was cancer. In April she died at a hospice center. She came to tell me that she was leaving and that she loved me. I told her that I loved her and that I would miss her, but that I knew she had to go.

I awoke feeling oddly comforted and later that morning, when I talked to Buddy, he told me that she had passed away not 2 minutes earlier.

Not a day goes by that I don't miss her. I think about her so often.

She was my friend. She was not my best friend. She was

THE best friend.

If you're lucky enough to have a friend that doesn't condemn you, to have a friend who compliments you when you make the slightest change to your hair, who picks up some little thing because it made them think of you and that they thought you would enjoy it, if they can come to you and cry just because they know you will let them, and perhaps you might cry with them, and if you can tell them anything and not feel shame, or regret, and if you don't feel like you have to hide moments of your past from them because they might think less of you, then you too have THE best friend.

If you can call them, anytime, day or night, and if you don't mind if they call you anytime day or night, if you can walk out of your house and into theirs without calling first as if it were home away from home, and if your friend lets you know that you're priceless to them and you feel the same about them, then you have THE best friend...

Sometimes you don't need a best friend. You need the best friend.

 I miss you Pat, and thank you being the best friend for me, and  for the honor being your friend. Your best friend - ever.



Patricia