Family Ties

When I was young I had a best friend, who, not unlike many children’s childhood best friends, lived across the street from me.   Time, when you’re young, moves at an entirely different rate.   Jenny was four years younger then me and when they moved away in 1980, she would have been six-years-old.   Or at least that’s my memory of the time they lived across from us.   That meant Jenny and I had six years together, although it felt like so much longer than that. 

Jenny and I did everything together.   I remember her losing her tooth while we were swinging in our hammock in the front yard.   She didn’t realize it was the tooth at the time and dropped the hard, white thing she thought was an anomalous part of the Oreo she had been eating on the ground, under the hammock.   When we realized what it was sometime later, an exhaustive search ensued, but we never found the tooth.  

That was only one of many memories I have of the time Jenny and I spent together.   Their family moved three hours away in 1980.   We got together several times each year, resuming our friendship where we had left off, even though time was passing and we were getting older. 

Our families have stayed in touch through the years.  Jenny and I both have two children now and live states apart.   I hear about things in their lives from time to time through my mother.   Joan, Jenny’s mother, sent my daughter a bag of pennies that have been taken to many trips to Detroit and deposited in the fountain in at the mall.   We have Jenny’s children’s tricycle, big wheel worn out and replaced and yet still used, despite the fact that my children are far too old to use it.   My daughter doesn’t seem to mind that her knees are in the way as she pedals around the house, filling the back compartment up with ice, declaring she’s an ice truck and could she have some ice cream to tote around so she could be an Ice Cream Truck.  

I got in the mail this week a copy of Southern Living magazine with a note to read the article titled, “Family Ties”.   The article was about John and Joan’s home in Charleston.   The article featured pictures of their home and the design process Jenny, an interior designer, and their architect had gone through build their home.

I was smiling as I read the article, remembering John and Joan and their passions for antique furniture.   Before they had even begun building their house Jenny had found the wallpaper for the dining room.   A stunning mural that would end up setting the color pallet for the entire home.   Their home is beautiful, but my favorite part was the picture of John, Joan and Jenny at the end of the article.   Time has past and we’ve all grown older, but the look just the same to me in my heart.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a doctor’s appointment today.   I had sent an email to school saying he’d be late.   The appointment went quickly but as we got in the car to head to school my son said, “uh on, mom, today is a field trip.”   His class had left thirty minutes before on the last field trip of the year before school is out on Wednesday.   Or so I though.   I called the school, planning to ask if I could drive him to the field trip location to drop him off with his class when I found out that due to the heavy rains, they were only going to the second half of the field trip to the lemur center after lunch.   Close call for a calendar fail on our part.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter informed me yesterday, "I think whipped cream would go better on bacon. Don’t you think?"