Happy framed faces filled the silver tray on my baby grand piano. Over four decades of friendships were immortalized there. There was Sonja eating fried chicken at a potluck. Barbie giggling at her computer. Carole and me on vacation in North Carolina.
All these women were gone now. I lost Sonja to a heart attack, Barbie to cancer, Carole to Alzheimer’s. Even my beloved dog, Spanky, had recently succumbed to pancreatitis.
Every friendship ends, I thought. Then my eye fell on another photo—my best friend, Sue. She was 19 years older than I was. Older than most of the friends I had already lost. I had to prepare myself for the inevitable. But the truth was, I honestly didn’t think I could survive it.
A car honked outside. A group of us girls were taking a trip to Clarksburg for the day. I’d hoped the trip would take my mind off my sadness, but the thought of getting in a van with Sue filled me with dread.
“All aboard,” my friend Debbie called when I climbed in the front seat. “Have a macadamia nut cookie,” said Jeanne from the seat behind us, passing a baker’s box and filling the van with a buttery aroma.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. Sue was all the way in the back of the van. I’d barely looked at her when I got in.
“How did you and Roberta meet?” Tresa in the backseat asked Sue.
“I’ve known her since she was in pigtails,” she said. “Roberta is like the daughter I never had.”
“Friendship must be strong with roots that deep,” Tresa marveled.
I remembered the first time I saw Sue, blonde and pretty as a movie star behind the piano at our little Baptist church. “I pestered my mother to let me sit by myself right by the piano,” I said before I realized I was speaking. “I watched her hands move over the keys and tried to copy on my wool plaid skirt.”
“A very short skirt, if I recall!” Sue cut in, and set the others to laughing. “And I can’t count all the times I had to give her a pinch for passing notes during the services!”
“A pinch always followed by an affectionate pat,” I reminded her.
The memory set my mind wandering further. Sue comforting me when my mother was injured. Sue encouraging me with my nursing studies. Sue welcoming me into her house for dinner when I’d spent all the money I earned selling Avon on textbooks and had nothing to eat.
Don’t think about those times, I told myself. Don’t think about Sue.
Thankfully the conversation moved on to something safer: antiques. “The first antique I ever bought was a washstand—” I started. Too late I remembered that day. Of course Sue had been with me.
“I admit I pushed her to get it,” she said. “I told her, honey, a washstand is the most versatile piece of furniture you’ll ever own. It can be an end table, a nightstand, a kitchen island, even a vanity.”
“It’s still in my house. Right next to the grandfather clock,” I said. One day it would be another reminder of a friend I’d loved and lost.
After that day I stopped accepting invitations to go out if I knew Sue would be there. I kept our phone calls to superficial small talk. No old memories. Nothing to remind me of the fear that was with me all the time now. The fear of losing Sue.
“I miss you,” Sue told me before we hung up one day in late fall.
“I miss you too,” I said. I did miss Sue, more than she could ever know. But I would miss her even more when I lost her for good. Best to guard my heart now to avoid more pain in the future.
December rolled around. I drove my car down to the mailbox on my country road one morning. A heavy, square white envelope was waiting for me. I was so curious I tore it open right there in my car. It was a friendship journal from Sue.
I opened the red and green cover. “Roberta, I’m so thankful to have a friend like you,” the inscription said. “So I have recorded some of our good times together in this book.”
I turned page after page in Sue’s careful handwriting. “Who would have thought we would ever be friends with our age difference?” she wrote. “I never would have dreamed you’d become so dear and special to me. But I’m so glad you did!”
I was blessed to have Sue, I thought. Every one of these memories was a blessing. On the final page the publisher had printed a Bible verse from Proverbs: “A friend loveth at all times.” Sue was my best friend, but I hadn’t been loving her at all. I’d just been fearing her.
I grabbed my cell phone and punched in her number. By the time she answered I was in tears. “I got the book, Sue,” I said. “I didn’t mean for us to drift apart. I was just so afraid I had to distance myself from everyone—especially you.”
“Did you read what I wrote at the end of the book?” she asked.
I flipped to the page where Sue had inscribed, “I’m so grateful for all the days we have traveled together. May God continue to bless our friendship in the seasons ahead.”
God had blessed all our days together, from the very first day we met. I didn’t know how many seasons Sue and I had together on this earth. But I never had to worry about losing her love. Or she, mine.
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