My closest, most dear friend is someone I went to Kindergarten with. I grew up a few acres away from her. (I can’t measure the distance by blocks, because I grew up sans blocks, or curbs, or paved roads.)
I can’t begin to guess the hours I spent in Karin’s home as a child, teen, and then adult. As we’d walk home from our elementary school, I’d spend 30 minutes watching afternoon cartoons at her place, before continuing to walk home. I remember helping her sister Lisa move from her apartment into her new home as a married woman. I remember hanging out with her brother Eric when Karin would be doing chores – the forts we’d create from couch cushions. I remember introducing Karin to Matt, the man she would marry. He was a close friend of mine from an evening church group I was involved with and he was (and still is) my “musical twin”.
I remember we stopped talking after my wedding engagement was cancelled. I remember spying her folks, Lee and Arne, several years afterwards in a local restaurant, and with a giant gulp of courage, walking to their table to give my regards – hoping that they’d pass along a message of “I miss you” to their daughter, which they did. I remember being thrilled that we could all pick up and move forward. I spent holidays, family events, birthdays and just random evenings with Karin and her extended family. In fact, I have spent more time with some of her cousins than with my own. I remember when Karin’s folks moved out of state after their children were grown, and I still think “there’s Karin’s house” when I drive past it to visit my folks.
I remember where I was when Matt called me to tell me that their first daughter had been born. And I *vividly* remember holding their second daughter less than 24 hours after she’d been born. Karin knows and understands my uneasiness around babies, and that she asked me to hold her daughter still touches my heart. (My reason for said “trepidation” is solid and this is neither the time nor the place.) I’ll always be able to say that I have known those girls since the days they were born.
What I find pretty interesting is that when Lee and Arne come to visit these days, we all hang out as adults and reminisce about our collective childhoods – Karin’s folks, Matt, Karin and I. Both Lee and Arne are native San Franciscans (just like both of my folks), and because I’ve been included as a family member for so long, I know the reference points and the family names they discuss. We remember various teachers from the point of view as “student” and “parent of student”. We update each other on “whatever happened to …” with names of kids that Karin and I went to school with. And, now that we’re all grown-ups, Karin and I are slowly letting her parents in on the REAL stories behind various events. (Apparently she hadn’t owned up to a sleepover we attended in the 8th grade when, at 2:30am, we six gals decided to go to the park in our night shirts … and maybe we MIGHT have TP’d a house ...)
Karin’s Grandmother (who we all called Nana) had a life-long, very dear friend. I remember thinking how terrific that was – that Nana had had this friendship for so long. I remember re-introducing myself to the friend at Nana’s funeral, and she was kind enough to say something like “don’t be silly, of course I remember you.” Lee has a life-long, very dear friend as well, and she named her youngest daughter after her in honor … Karin.
And she is my life-long, very dear friend.
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