#52 Stories--Story #21

Who was your first best friend?  Are you still in contact with each other?  What do you remember about the friendship?

The majority of my growing up my best friend was Kathy M. We rode the bus together.  We attended school together.  We had similar country-girl lives. In junior and high school we were inseparable. More weekends than not we were spending the night at each other's homes.  After graduation we both even attended BYU for our university studies.

We had been in tight contact until shortly after my kids were born. Her first marriage broke up in a rather ugly and hurtful way far beyond what I understood at the time. At our 10 year high school reunion I crossed a line and told her what I thought of some of her choices--completely out of bound as I now know--and she didn't speak to me again for 20 years. I regretted what I said from almost the very moment I said it.

We saw each other at the 20 year reunion--but our greetings were superficial and very brief and a little more than awkward.

By our 30th reunion this past summer, her life had radically changed. She was divorced a second time and was now living in a committed lesbian relationship. At the reunion I took the chance to ask her how she really was and how her kids were.  I asked how her parents and sister were doing. I feel so grateful that she took the questions in the genuine way I meant them and --whether it was the wine or something else talking--she told me JUST how things stood in her life. Since she had come out, her parents had disowned her and her sister didn't want much to do with her either.  Her partner Stacey was there with her and frankly, I thought she was terrific!   I took the chance again and told her that I  was so sorry things weren't better with her family, but that I was so happy that she seemed so happy and at peace in herself and with Stacey. I also told her that I always just wanted her to be happy.  We hugged and I felt like things are fallen back into place.

We aren't at any kind of similar place in our lives right now, but I am sincerely pleased that she has found some happiness after a life full of some really difficult and painful situations.  She is now a Nurse Practitioner in Montana and a grandma three times over. I wish her nothing but continued happiness and joy and some sense of peace about her family.  I have so many happy memories from growing up at each other's side. And that I can't ever regret.