Friends Along the Way--A There and Back Again Post

When working on seating arrangements for my daughter’s wedding, I dubbed one of the tables The Fun Table. At that table, I seated friends I had known from different times and different places in my life. Few of them knew one another, but each had heard stories about one another through me. It felt like a foretaste of heaven, watching them laugh and celebrate together. I knew each was a gift; each had been placed in my life at a particular time to walk with me and keep me company along the road of learning to grow up. Along the way we had laughed together, cried together, prayed together, gotten into trouble together, and experimented with a few unfortunate hairstyles together.

Through her There and Back Again project, Charity Singleton of The High Calling network encourages bloggers to visit other member sites, read their posts, and then choose one to write about. This week, I came across a lovely piece about friendship written by Jean Wise at Healthy Spirituality. She wrote:

No matter how difficult or fun, unexpected or routine, long or short the trip is, friends make all the difference.

The Gospel a few weeks ago - one of my favorites - told about two people traveling together on the road to Emmaus, sharing their confusion and sorrow. Another friend joined them for their journey too.

Jean listed a number of friends from different times and places in her life, friends who I assume would make up a truly fun table if they all were seated together at a wedding. She gave thanks for each friend and noted the ways many had been an encouragement and blessing to her. Among them she listed:

My best friends from sixth grade who can still remember what I wore the first day as a chubby, frightened student in a new school.

Jean’s post reminded me of my very first kindergarten friend, Lynne. Before school started, my mom and I met with my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Burns.  She told me that one of my classmates lived on the next block of my street and thought maybe we’d like to walk together to school. Mary Poppins lunchbox in hand and nametag tied securely around my neck with a piece of yarn, I waited for Lynne to arrive on that first day of school. We walked to the corner by the Bryer’s house, turned right, walked two more blocks to the corner guarded by sixth grade safety patrols, and then crossed in safety to begin our careers at Lincoln Elementary. It was the first of thirteen years’ worth of days traveling together as school friends.

I can’t say Lynne and I did everything together, but she was present throughout so much of my childhood. Together we wrote fan letters to our celebrity crushes from Tiger Beat magazine—mine was Jack Wild from H.R. Puf-n-Stuf, thank you very much. Because Lynne had an older sister, she learned the facts of life sooner than I did and revealed them to me in shocking detail in the shed behind my house. At the beginning of fourth grade, I got my hair cut in a page boy because Lynne had. We both earned the privilege of becoming safety patrols for our little elementary school and stood on corners diagonal from one another to protect and serve our fellow students. During our years at Lincoln Elementary we made a new friend and altered our course so we could stop at her house and pick her up along the way. I remember the sadness I felt on our last walk home from the brick elementary building.

During the summer before we started junior high, Lynne’s older sister walked us along the route we’d be taking to our new school, timing us so we’d know when we had to leave in the mornings. Our walk took us through the downtown section of our small community, and we often stopped at the local newsstand to buy candy or gum along the way. We cut through a corner of the local college and wondered sometimes if the college boys might mistake us for coeds, and think we were cute. On our way home, we usually stopped to hang out with the Chuck, the owner of The Bootery--a local shoe store. Hanging out with Chuck wasn’t nearly as creepy as it sounds as I type these words; my hometown was a very safe community and, as it turned out, Chuck had no interest in young girls.

Our high school years found us walking along the railroad tracks, cutting through the parking lots of local businesses, crossing the busy main street, and entering the home of The Fighting Eagles. We marched together in band camp during the two hottest weeks each summer. For four years we shared a lunch table with Marcia, Tami, Michelle, and the occasional boyfriend when one of them was in a relationship. Lynne and I spent a week together at her parents’ house when they were out of town because, I assume, they thought we’d be safer and behave more responsibly together. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Our years of walking together gave way to ones of shared car rides as we and our friends earned our licenses. I remember the day Lynne’s sister drove us to school and we heard the news of Elvis’s death. We complained that, instead of Peter Frampton, Boston, and the Bee Gees, the radio played only Elvis that morning. We didn’t understand what the big deal was, until Lynne’s sister said, “Don’t you get it? He was the King!”

We graduated, I left for college, and Lynne got married. I returned to be a bridesmaid in Lynne’s wedding. There is a picture of me on her Facebook page—young, tan, thin and wearing sea foam polyester. We are Facebook friends now. We exchange Christmas cards.  Sometimes Lynne checks in on my mother who stills lives in my old hometown. Our lives are very different and we live far from one another, but childhood memories of Lynne and me occupy a lot of space in my heart. It’s been a beautiful walk revisiting some of these old memories, all of which had their beginning on that very first day of kindergarten.

 

Each Thursday, consider going "There and Back Again" yourself. It's simple:

 1.) Choose another High Calling Blogger to visit. It can be someone you have "met" before, or do what I do, and work your way through the "Member Posts" section of thehighcalling.com to meet someone new.

2.) Visit his blog, digesting the message until it becomes something that you can write about.

3.) Go back to your blog and write about it, being sure to link to the post that gave you the idea so that your readers can visit, too.

4.) Add the button above to your blog so your readers know you are participating in "There and Back Again." (With apologies to Charity, I'm having technical difficulties with the button)

5.) Go back to the Network blog and leave a comment so your new friend can feel the link love!

6.) Complete the journey by returning to Wide Open Spaces, and enter your link so that all can benefit from the new High Calling connection you have made.