It’s been a while since I snuggled up by the fire with a half bottle of my favorite vino, Muscato Di Asti, a rare lightly sweet, clean dessert wine, along with my unused mintues on Verizon to catch up with one of my very best friends, Kathy.
Kathy and I go way way back, back about 30 years, I guess, at least. We met at Olives, where I was hired to make bows for Crissmiss, and was making centerpieces, wreaths, decorating trees, selling ornaments, plants, working the gift shop and eventually was also running the greenhouse, and keeping the books, selling trees, shrubs, and so forth. All I didn’t do was the pet shop. Kathy, and Peggy ( rest her soul) both worked in the pet shop, Peggy almost exclusively, and Kathy did all kinds of other jobs like I did.
We had some great times together back in those days, and after we both divorced, Kathy became like a sister to me, How many friends would fly out to where you have moved, and drive with you and your child in a 27 ft U-haul, with transported car on the back to move again, and offer you living with them in a tiny apartment because you were really just lost and ungrounded, alone, adrift without a family to help you feel rooted in something, belonging to some one group, again?
Kathy and I had our differences at one time, I think that is what makes a real relationship, tried and true. I always knew we had a bond, and bonds like that never break, they might be tested, but not broken.
When Kathy and I chat for a few to three hours, catching up, as I sit back in my siesta chair feet up, and sipping my favorite wine, it is almost as good as a real visit. We go through all the drama’s, and the tragedies, and then always end up telling stories about friends, men, etc that are just too funny. We share news about movies, books, and travels. We catch up with the goings on of each others lives, and it is truly a reunion that leaves me feeling happy, connected and satisfied. Maybe Saturday I will ring her up, and she’ll be in that place of needing a visit too, although of late we talk while she is traveling, from Alabama to visit her family in Texas.
Kathy lost her Mother this last year just before Christmas. She made many trips back to see her in hospitals, and at home, and now she visits her Dad. Kathy has two sons that take very good care of her, calling and visiting. Dan is the younger, and Matt, my Godson, the oldest. I have always appreciated the boys involvement in her life, the way they won’t leave her alone holidays, and how they travel to places with her. They talk often on the phone.
Talking to Kathy while she travels is nice too, Those long stretches can be so lonely, I know, as one who has traveled across country alone. It makes me feel an important part of her travels, and I am needed, and I hope it makes her feel that she is cared for.
It’s time soon for another long talk, catching up, reminiscing, laughing, crying, all those things you do with girlfriends that make that friendship rich and rewarding, and that keeps you tied to places, time and people that are no longer visibly in your life.
In a marriage, ended, in anyway, it feels you are just a domino that fell of the end of the world, went suddenly from having a family you belong to, to being forgotten, shut off, a denial of reality, a hurtful experience, a death, that has no reason for being… after the time it takes to heal, learn, grow. But mine hasn’t changed much, still denial of connection. My friends, any friend isn’t like that, they love me, and I love them, and we support one another with loving calls, e-mails, and whatever visits we can create to strengthen our bonds, and the world in this wholeness ( love) that supports all of life.
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