4 Ways to Better Friends

It was after Mare Griebe said she was done with me, that I knew.

Mare, she had taken me to my first youth Bible study.

She delivered the thickly folded scribbled notes from the first boy who ever asked me out . . . the one I ended up marrying.

And I had flown half across the country to be her maid of honour. And then again, ten years later to hold her first baby.

We talked lactation and I helped with latch and I thought we’d never fall apart.

We were in grade 9 when she had played me my first Keith Greene song: “So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt.” It was the eighties. We had teased bangs and thick glasses and co-joined lives. She gave me more of Jesus.

Sometimes you can wanna to go back — and there ain’t no going back.

She had called that winter.

Left a message on the answering machine. I didn’t get around to calling her back for a couple of weeks . . . I folded laundry, made pots of soup, and baked dozens of loaves of bread. I had read history lessons to kids, taken out the garbage, paid bills, checked math homework. I had found a pair of red shoes, picked up knitting and a camera and a lot of lego. Planted a garden, attended meetings, returned emails.

But I didn’t get around to returning her call.

Painful how that is — Your days never fail to betray your priorities.

 

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Resource: my absolute favourite tea cups