I have a super friend!
I have one of the greatest friends anybody could ever hope for. We’ve been friends since we were ten years old. Ten years old!! She’s smart, kind, generous, loyal, funny and has great taste in friends (wink wink)!
As children, we made up so many games, drew comic books together, rode bikes, imagined what our husbands would be like, and coordinated our outfits for school. We shared secrets and family woes, gossiped through elementary and middle school and “stayed together” despite various moves to different states. We took trips together as we got older and more independent and always, always stayed in touch.
I love her as if she were my own flesh and blood sister. Maybe even more.
Now that we have kids, it’s more difficult to get together and stay involved in each others’ lives. This past weekend, I was finally able to make the trip I’d been planning to visit her and see the new baby! Our oldest kids (girls) are the same age and get along really well. We had a fairly relaxing weekend, catching up, watching the kids play, eating yummy food, and even finding a little time to reminisce.
The night before we went home, the girls were settling down on the sleeping bag. Peace was imminent.
Then my daughter threw up everywhere.
My friend had already gone to bed and I didn’t want to disturb her. She and her husband had to work the next day and take care of the baby all night. Somehow I managed to get her girls in their own beds without touching the… mess. Then I got the sleeping bag in the washing machine, accidentally letting the cat out in the process. After retrieving the cat, I found paper towels, plastic bags and spray to clean up the mess my poor daughter subsequently made in the bathroom.
And continued to make in the bathroom for the next 6 hours.
I texted my friend at 2:50 AM just to let her know what was going on. I was certain we had woken somebody up with all the lights going on and off, rummaging for supplies, and repeated cat-catching events. I truly felt horrible about what had happened. We had quickly become the guests nobody wants to have. I hoped that I had disinfected the bathroom enough.
Her response came at 3:52 AM: “Ugh, I’m so sorry. Do you need anything? I’m up right now.” We texted back and forth for about 20 minutes and just that exchange made me feel so much better. After all, being up for hours in not-your-own-house with a very sick 5-year-old is no walk in the park. It’s a lonely place to be in fact.
A few hours later when the whole house woke up, she came to help survey the damage. She could have freaked out, quarantined our ‘corner’ of the house, asked us politely to leave. But no….. she checked on the sleeping bag and started it through a second cycle, threw all our laundry piles in the large sink, and proceeded to get everybody ready as if it were a normal day.
That, dear readers, is the mark of a true friend. Somebody who’ll be with you in the good times and the bad times, and won’t at all make you feel worse than you already do…. and will in fact make you feel better, like the disaster you just made in her house is no big deal.
But she did let me know…. “Just so you know, if these kids get sick, you’re going to hear about it!” Fair enough!
About Mary Beth Cox