Twenty-Six Years

A quarter of a century plus a year ago this week, I met this girl my age with blonde hair at Vacation Bible School in a church new to our family.  We were Lyddie's age then, and our friendship has remained steady over the years and over the miles.  She has loved me through my bossy early years when two pesky younger brothers were the only siblings we knew, during the years when Barbies and dress-up dominated the hours, on through nail polish and boys and dreams and the arrival of more younger siblings, right on through life decisions and all-nighters half a country away from one another, when periodic phone calls were the only way to keep in touch.  She has been a part of most of my favorite memories.  Our lives are interwoven and have been as far back as I can remember.  We learned together from our mothers how to preserve fruit and how to have friendships that can make it through the storms.  We learned from beloved Mary with the wispy white hair how to knit and how to cross-stitch and how to have common sense and spent hours together in her living room listening to the sage wisdom of one so many many years ahead of us on the road.  

This weekend, with my girls who adore her, was such a gift.  Such a gift to sip coffee together in comfy chairs and talk about life and relationships and where we've come and dreams and hopes and disappointments while our silver embroidery needles mirrored lives, plain cloth turned beautiful one tiny stitch at a time.