First, Last and Best

Dee was quick to remind me when she
dug out this photo that the doll in my
hands was hers... laughing, of course!
(I'm on the left and she's always right!)

Last weekend I spent two days and nights with my First Best Friend, Deanna (now known as Dee), and it was a wonderful reunion! We talked and talked and talked and laughed and laughed. It was a delight after nearly XX years (a lot of them!) to find out we STILL like the same things, read the same kinds of books, laugh at the same kinds of jokes.

She was all ready for me, sharing the high school yearbook, photos of the last class reunions, commentary about the people there and missing, summarizing all the years that had passed since I'd been there or even in the vicinity, had a couple of town history books to help me get more caught up, lots and lots of photos of family and stories to go along and then there were the 'inside jokes' we still shared... and yes, Dee, I did give up my role as the Lone Ranger once in awhile so you could be him and I could be Tonto!!! But probably not enough and for that I do apologize, belatedly.

Sadly too many of our classmates have died, some younger than others. And it was a reminder to me that it is time to prepare my Last Will and Testament because I don't want my children to have to sort out things and have to pay to do it. And it is only with an old friend that you can discuss these sorts of subjects without resistance and with plenty of humor.

The Port Orange lighthouse is now a
national historic landmark, but two little
old ladies did not climb to the top to see the view.

Reminders of the little ways we had affected each other's lives as children (because we have known each other since we were five years old) were discussed and evaluated along with all the changes the world has gone through since "the good old days."

Dee had a passel of kids and now has loads of grandchildren and even a couple of Great grands... I showed her past photos of my family and recent shots of everyone and we shared grandmotherly stories, something I never imagined could be so much fun to do with someone who has known you for-evah!

I'm still on the left and Dee is STILL
right... in our late 40's?

Once, while I was living in St. Augustine and Dee and Kevin were headed south, they stopped by and we had a brief catch-up, but a lot got missed in that short pass-by. Here's a mid-life shot of the two of us.

As we sat on a beach bench seat, on the coast north of the Kennedy Space Center, we found out that we had been looking for each other off and on between the birthing and raising of children and jobs and husbands and finally it was the death of her beloved Kevin that got us together again when I stumbled on his obituary in a New Hampshire paper.

We are still friends after all these years and I am so glad we
reconnected! More fun to come!

"But I had been looking for you long before that happened," Dee said, wanting me to know that she was still my 'bestest friend' and she is... because who else would keep searching for someone who had basically fallen off the face of the earth relative to their life? The same one who saved me from a gang of girls who decided to kidnap me and tie me up in the woods and then walk away, leaving me unable to move or get loose as the sun set on a wintry afternoon. Yes, this really happened as I was leaving a Girl Scout meeting to walk home and it was Dee who found me, untied me and went home with me.

In so many ways, she is not only my First Best Friend but she is certainly my Last Best Friend, too. And we don't get to have too many of those, do we?