Old (and I do mean OLD) friends

I have three close friends from my childhood, whom I’ve written about before. We have all known each other since we were little girls, 700 years ago. In fact, the connection goes back another generation as some of our parents also grew up together.

How is it that we could have stayed friends all these years through all of life’s ups and downs? Many other people I have known since childhood have drifted in and out of my life. What made the four of us stick together? Two of us went away to college in different cities and returned to the area at different times. We all had busy lives with kids and work. We settled down at different stages and our kids went to different schools at different times. Why has this worked?

Well, for one thing we know each other’s secrets. Keep your friends close and your old friends closer. Another is geography; we all stayed in the Bay Area. We live in four separate counties but easily within 20 miles of one another. Still, many other people fall into those categories but have drifted away over the years as lives change.

I think the biggest reason we have remained close friends is effort. All four of us have made the effort to remain in each other’s lives, no matter what differences there may be. Maggie is the youngest of all our kids by four or five years. When she was born and in the years since, these women have helped me in so many ways, often by taking me away for a few hours, putting a drink in my hand and reminding me of all the foibles of my youth until I laughed so hard I cried.

I was the last of the four to settle down. In the ten or so years after high school I went to college in Los Angeles, moved to Boston, came back to San Francisco for a while and then decided to go to law school and moved to Sacramento. I returned here for good in 1985.
In those same years the other three went to college, one going away for a short time but returning after a couple of years, and the other two staying put. Two of them, Nonie and Sharon got married within one week of each other in 1981, before I even started law school. By the time those weddings happened, though, Lori had been married about 5 years and had two girls, Jennifer and Julie. Lori was always the first to hit the “next stage.”

I remember playing with her baby daughter Jennifer in an apartment I had in San Francisco. She was maybe 8 or 10 months old. I remember it so clearly, because I was playing with the baby on the floor and not watching closely enough and Jennifer hit her head. Unhhh. That still gives me a sick feeling. Lori scooped up her baby and soothed her and me at the same time. She was calm and forgiving. She was a mom and even though I was not anywhere close to that myself, I was impressed. (For some reason she did not let me hold Jennifer again. Hmmmm.)

Apparently, there was not too much lasting damage to Jennifer. She grew up, became a teacher, got married and, as of three days ago, has two kids of her own. Her daughter Catalina (Lina for short) came home yesterday to meet her big brother Thomas. (When she reads this I will never get to hold her baby)

That means Lori is a grandmother twice over. Once again, she enters the next stage before the rest of us. Nonie, Sharon and I are very happy to call her grandma as often as possible. (Lori IS, after all, the oldest of the four of us.)

And though I’m nowhere close to that stage, I am once again impressed by Lori and the ease with which she moves into the next stage of life with gusto and shows all of us how easy it is. She is a fun grandma or “noni” as she is called. She is obviously completely smitten by and wrapped up in these grandchildren and we are happy for all of them.

She cannot shake us; we are those crazy friends of Noni’s that these children will make fun of for years to come.