Best Friends

When I was in the middle of fifth grade my family moved from a small west-Ohio town to the Greater Cleveland area. I left behind a few good friends. My best friend, Connie, and I stayed in touch with letters back and forth for years. A couple of times we had long weekend visits and such.

We even kept in touch through college, although a little less often. I was so pleased when I received an invitation to her wedding in the mail. My mom and I were able to attend. A little over a year later, Connie and her husband were able to attend my wedding.

Somewhere around the time of the weddings my mom mentioned to me that she and Connie's mom were surprised that we kids had managed to keep in touch through all those years. That really surprised me when she told me.

Now I'm looking at the picture from another point of view. The Artist's best friend is moving to Texas next week. These two girls are right around the same age Connie and I were when I moved. I know it will be difficult, but I will definitely be encouraging them to write long hand, snail mail letters to each other. Because it does take more effort, I believe more of ones self is put into a physical letter. And it is so much fun to receive a nice fat letter from a friend in the mail! But I talked to Best Friend's mom and got her daughter's email address as well.

When my best friend came to my last birthday celebration in our old town she gave me a beautiful flannel nightgown as a gift. It was so pretty! I was thankful that it was a little big at the time, because that meant it would last longer. I did have it for several years. It was a fitting gift because we had had so many sleepovers when we lived in the same town.

Some time last summer Artist and Best Friend planted some apple seeds in the middle of the lawn in my back yard. You may be familiar with the success rate of planting seeds from grocery store apples. The girls were incredible disapointed when nothing came up. They still insist it was the lawn mower that did their apple trees in.

This year I shop at a new produce market that opened near my home. One time they were out of my favorite gala apples so I bought some pink lady apples instead. Imagine my joy the first time I cut one open and found the seeds had started to grow roots! I planted them in some soil and now I have three apple seedlings (darn chipmonks destroyed the other three) about an inch and one half tall, each with six nice leaves coming along. Tomorrow at Tae Kwon Do the Artist will give two seedlings to Best Friend to remember her by. We'll keep the other one here and it will be treasured. It would be truly amazing of one if these grew on to flower and bear fruit one day.