Week 6

Is Blood Thicker Than Water?

Today we are not speaking. Yesterday was tipsy. Tomorrow is still not known but a week ago…we were good. It’s like that with us, she and I are not like two peas in a pod but are more like milk and cookies; both are nice on their own but are much better when together. However, this yummy combo was not concocted overnight - it has taken more effort then a fifty year long marriage but every moment has been worth it because a friend like this is that diamond in the rough we all hope to find.

I have five sisters, I love them all; she, however, is my sixth sister, not by blood but by choice. We make a daily conscious effort to make this choice and the feeling you get when you know you are being chosen for this place of honor in someone’s life is an ultimate high. Sixteen years now we’ve been making this choice, for it was sixteen years ago we met.

It was the mid-nineties, I was finishing up high school and I was ready for the world! Of course I wanted it all handed to me on a silver platter, what kid didn‘t. We were a generation that was raised having to start working as soon as we were big enough to lift a blueberry rake (thank you child labor laws for coming into play years later). So by the time I was breaking out of accounting class I figured I knew the ins and outs of earning a buck and, with pyramid schemes flooding Ellsworth, my ex and I thought why earn the buck when you could swindle it; after all that was faster and easier - or so it was thought…

Her ex and my ex worked together, old Mr. Bellows kept them pounding nails and scraping paint but work was scarce and times were tough; everyone one was on the look out for a way to improve their situations. Somehow, our exes pulled together a plan…probably the best (only good) idea they ever had.

I was informed one afternoon that we would be hosting an event, a meet-n-greet of sorts to learn all about a new business opportunity (thoughts of a pyramid scheme came rushing to the forefront) and I was to be prepared for my life to change. Change it did; however, not in the way the exes thought it might. Amway may have been their spiel of choice, thoughts of riches beyond their imaginations, dreams of quick bucks and self employment, busier and richer then Sam Walton; but it was the long haired lady that altered my life. Granted Amway did have that get-rich-quick jingle to it but I discovered something worth more than cash.

She sat in our living room quiet as a mouse. She had long blonde wavy hair, tall, slender, eloquently dressed (like a proper lady on her way to church); she spoke softly, sharing her hopes and dreams in a soft voice just above a whisper. Her and her husband were to be our sponsors, the people just above us, the ones we would have to go-to and I thought… “Oh god! This will never work - her and I are just going to clash!” She was too sweet, too doting on her husband, too kind, too gullible…not at all someone I could mesh with but like my mumma always told me - never judge a book by it’s cover.

And boy o’ boy was mumma right about that! Wasn’t too long into this ‘working’ relationship that her and I got to know one another…..like I said, milk and cookies. Now I had friends prior to her; first male friend from Kindergarten who stomped on my toes to get ahead in the water fountain line , my first female friend who lost the silver glove to my Michal Jackson Barbie doll, and others along the way…but she tops them all.

We are far from perfect; we can not always be there for each other the way the other one thinks is best. I remember when I was getting married she was no where in my life to be found, nor was she when I was pregnant with my first child; it was hard and it hurt, even put a bit of a strain on us for awhile but we talked and worked it out. I, in turn, have not always been there for her; sadly there have been times that I have let her down too. It’s hard when that happens because it hurts worse then anything I can describe. The very thought of losing one another aches more then all the toothaches in my life combined, stings more then the time I stepped on the bee jumping off our old tire swing, throbs more than the severe migraines I’ve been enduring do to high amounts of stress and crippling back pains….I believe the point is being made that it would really simply bite (worse than nursing babies with first teeth).

But the good out weighs the bad; there have been more times then I can count or even recall that we have been there for one another. I believe we are like Thelma and Louise, Selma and Patty, Betty White and the rest of the Golden Girls all balled into two; we would go to the ends of the earth for one another. The tails I could tell of bail outs from jail or pick-ups after being drugged by a coworker; no questions asked, no judgments made - we were just there - best friends.

How does a quiet mouse evolve into the bestest friend of all times…well, that road is different for everyone and a lot will depend if you are traveling on that same road or not. Amway did more then sell their SA8 laundry detergent that year… At one point, we all took a business trip to Rhode Island, we read the required reading on the way down, “Chicken Soup for the Soul”, shacked up with their sponsors and attended the big Amway conference; boy did that company know how to put on an event. Ricky Van Shelton blared across the arena and into the night; when my new pal smashed her head on the cement ceiling of the parking garage from being excited and overjoyed by the times we were sharing together and just laughed it off…I knew it was friendship at first smash - the mouse was knocked clear out and I knew from that moment we were kindred spirits - her and I…milk and cookies.

Now, I’ve always heard blood is thicker than water…. but is blood thicker than milk?