Friendship

I have a friend whom I have known since we were both just 14. We met in the cafeteria at lunchtime, started talking amidst the noise and confusion of several hundred teenagers. After exchanging phone numbers, we headed off to class. That simple beginning spawned the greatest friendship of my life. We have spent countless hours on the phone (awkward back when phones had curly cords that my mother didn't want stretched out). We roamed the length and breadth of Sterling Heights on our bikes.

Then graduation came, and we headed in separate directions, me off to Ann Arbor. We didn't talk as much, but the friendship remained. Years passed, we each got married, had kids... (and I'm aunt to hers and her to mine). More years passed.

She was there for me when my marriage crumbled, and I began a new life on my own. And the friendship continued.

She has always been there for me, to listen as I vent, to be calm when I'm freaking out, and to say the hard truths when they need to be said. I tell her everything....and believe she does the same to me.

Now, though we live an hour apart, we still talk nearly daily. Now it's on cordless phones, instant messaging, emails and cell phones.... but it's the same friendship.

I'm made other friends since then...Sharon, Faye, Rhoda, Marie, Paigely, Andrea, and many others... but she is still very important to me... one of the strongest people I know, a mother, a wife, a Christian, a college student and more. She is everything...she is my friend. Connie.