Silver Linings and Best Friends

Yes'm, old friends is always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of.--Sarah Orne Jewett

Every cloud has a silver lining.  This statement may be be cliche, but the truthfulness of it cannot be denied.  At least for me, this saying has proven itself many times in my life, the latest being the reunion of my best friend and myself in the wake of my father's passing.


I met my best friend at Capitan's Smokey Bear Stampede dance back in 1987.  A friend introduced me and my sister, fourteen and fifteen years old at the time,  to two sisters who were also fourteen and fifteen.  The four of us could not have been more adolescently awkward and shy and I think that may have been part of the drawing factor between us.  As we talked, we found that we had many things in common and an instant attraction of like-minded souls very quickly cemented into the longest lasting friendship I've ever had.  We spent the remainder of that summer taking hikes, going on picnics, hanging out at each other's homes, playing volleyball, swimming in the creek and just kicking around our tiny town.   The four of us were good friends, but it was me and T. that seemed to develop the closest bond.  


We were friends through high school, college, boyfriends, marriages, divorces, babies....together we were there for everything with one another.  The good, the bad, the ugly....we saw it all with each other.  We were what I believed to be forever friends and then one day we just weren't.  At least it seemed like that.


In retrospect, I realize that external circumstances as well as issues going on within our own lives caused a fracturing of our relationship long before the complete break occurred.  We also had developed an interesting dynamic of co-dependence which began to grow more toxic as increasing pressures of daily living weighed more heavily on us.  The relationship just couldn't withstand the strain, and ultimately a massive fight ensued and we didn't speak for eight long years.


At the time the friendship ended, I wept as if someone had died.  I grieved for a long time and I think she must have too.  Much like a death, as the years pass, the pain lessens and a person is able to look back upon the memories with more joy than sorrow.  You gain perspective on your behavior and the friend's behavior and can put things into the proper context allowing you to analyze objectively what aspects were wrong with the relationship and what components were really, really good.  


I thought a lot about T. over the past eight years.  I never stopped caring about what happened in her life and I always wished her well.  And as much as I hated to admit it, I missed her.  She had the amazing ability to make a joke out of everything and make you laugh right in the middle of crying.  She was and is incredibly funny and I always missed the humor she provided.  I liked to think that she missed me too.  I never really knew though because we never talked to each other in the last eight years.  At least not until my father died a month ago.


When she heard that my dad had passed away, she went to a mutual friend's house and cried her eyes out.  That friend, God bless her, told her to come to my sister's house and give her condolences and surprisingly, she did.  She loved both of my parents.  T. spent a tremendous amount of time at my house when we were younger, and my parents treated her like a daughter.  She especially loved my dad because their senses of humor spoke to one another.   My sister and I were shocked when she showed up, but we welcomed her with open arms and it seemed through the course of that week, as family and friends came in to pay their respects and attend my father's service, T. melted right back into our lives as if she had never left.  She came over every night, helped with the reception after the service, visited with family, and fell right back into place.  It all felt so natural, so right.


It's amazing.  We have picked up right where we left off, except both of us are in much better places in terms of maturity and emotional states.  It feels great to have my best friend back, someone who knows me better than almost anyone else in the entire world.  Like the quote at the top of the post says, old friends are best, especially the forever kind.  And I am glad that in the wake of something so painful such as my father's death, that the silver lining turned out to be one equally as wonderful.  It just feels right and fair that it should be that way, and I am grateful.  I am pretty sure T. is too.