Best Friend

[Wilma]

Her name was Jean.  We met in fifth grade.  I was the new girl in school.  She had been going to school here since 1st grade.  "Here" was a small town in Sedgwick County.  Our room was the 4th, 5th and 6th grades.  Fifth grade was a very small class, only 4 or 5 students.  There were maybe 8 students in 6th grade and maybe that many in 4th grade.  If my memory serves me right, we were the only girls in 5th grade, which left only 2 boys.  I had just come from a larger school where there was only one class to a room, with as many as 20 students to a class.  This small class was like coming home to me.  It was more like the small country schools that I had been used to.  I liked it "Here".

Jean was short and stocky.  Some said she was fat, but I never thought of her as fat.  She was the perfect friend, never contradicting me, never questioning my decisions, always supporting whatever I wanted to do.  She was a good enough student that I can't remember having to help her with anything, yet she wasn't any threat to my superiority.  Probably she contributed to my feeling that I was as good as anyone and better than most, a feeling that I still carry.  I never had to prove anything to her.

In the four years of grade school that we shared, others came and went, including the irritant of my life, who came and went a couple of times.  But Jean was always there.  Our day ended at the end of the school day as she got in a car and was taken miles away to a smaller community that didn't have a school.. Sometimes she would come home with me and spend the night.  We didn't call it a sleepover.  It was more of a convenience so that she could attend some school function that her parents wouldn't have to bring her and wait to take her home.

My family liked her.  My brothers didn't tease her as they did some of my friends.  My older sister treated her like another little sister.  My mother could tell that she had been taught how to be a good guest.  In fact, my parents knew her parents, even though they didn't consider them good friends.  It took me years to figure out that her father drank and wasn't considered a good example for me.

Our ways parted at the end of our eighth grade.  She went home and didn't come back for high school.  Her parents decided to send her to another small town high school.  This left me as the only freshman that had gone to grade school "Here".  It was still a small class, six that I can remember and all of them strangers.

We corresponded regularly through our freshman and sophomore years.  After my sophomore year, my parents moved us to a farm in a different community and sometime during our Junior year, my parents told me that Jean had been sick and had died of a brain hemorrhage.  So was the life of a little girl that had seen me as perfect.  I think she was the perfect one.  Always there, always cheerful, always ready for whatever I wanted to do.  Could anyone ask for anything more?

[Jo McDonald]

Wilma.....What a beautiful story!!! Thank you for sharing that with the rest of us.

Good friends are what keep our lives flowing smoothly.  Good loving family members are what keep our hearts and minds happy and content.

[Janet Harrington]

I love it that Mother is sharing these stories.  These are not stories that we have heard before.  Mother is quite the story teller in writing.  That's probably where I get my great writing skills.  I do know that the second daughter in our family is named after this little girlfriend of Mother's. 

[indygal]

My best friend and I first met in kindergarten and have been best friends ever since. There were a few years as young adults that we didn't stay in touch (she and her hubby had moved to Phoenix, me and mine to Indiana, so we kind of lost track), but the other 30 years or so we've talked nearly every single day. I could write a book about all the crazy stunts the two of us pulled, all the tearful and joyful times we've shared, and all the memories we've made together. She's as crazy as I am, and that's why we love each other so much.

[Teresa]

I have had 2 best friends when I was in grade school in Pittsburgh Ks. Jenny and Diane.
The last time I talked to them was when I left college in 1972.

Barbie Gibbs was my best 'girl' friend in high school..and Mark Cookson was my very best friend
all through school...and afterwards....and still is in many ways.
In all tht time, we never dated or even thought about it.( anyway, I never did) We were like brother and sister..and acted like it most of the time.
We kept in touch even after he married Roxann Criger and I married John Gray. Then, we both divorced..and got married and the rest is history.

Kjell is the most wonderful friend that you can have. He not only listens to everything that I am constantly blabbing about, but he talks back and gives me different angles to see and is never ever judgmental . He is a great talker too. LOL

My "girl friends best friends" have been the Posse these past few years. Kinda strange how we all were here in Howard and didn't associate hardly at all with each other...but just 4 years ago, we 'came together'.
I can only describe this friendship as Ya Ya Sisterhood.

To end this... I have to say that through all my life of 54 years, my very best friends in the whole wide world..through the good times and the bad times..through EVERYTHING.. is my wonderful angel Mama and my soul's breath...my sister Sherri.
I think if I hadn't of had these 2 amazing women in my life, I wouldn't have survived some of the things I survived. Strong words I know... but the truth.

Friends................in all shapes and sizes.. through different times in our lives..... have to be one of the greatest gifts of learning to give and take, that God gives to us.

[Janet Harrington]

That is great, Teresa.  I love you much.  I'm glad your are home.

[CrumCowgirlMama]

Very well put Teresa!