Best Friends

My first best friend was Diana Meloro. We had gone to school together for a few years and really clicked in fourth grade. She was tall and willowy and I was shorter and pixy-like. We dubbed ourselves "Me and My Shadow". She played basketball and I danced. Unforunately we grew apart when we went to different high schools. Thankfully, we have been able to reconnect on Facebook.

When I went to public school for 9th grade I didn't know very many people and those I did know I did not want to be close to them. I met a girl named Mera Scanlon who was my extreme opposite and we became the best of friends. She was a cheerleader. I was manager of the volleyball team. She had a boyfriend. I couldn't get a boy to talk to me. We both were in the spring drama and had gotten saved that year. She was bold and beautiful. I was shy and cute. We both tried out for the pom pon squad and made it. We roomed together at camp that summer and could not wait to dance together. Then I decided to go to a small Christian school and we didn't see each other again until Josh was 1 year old and we were shopping in the store where she worked. I have not seen her or talked to her since then.

In 10th - 12th grade I became best friends with Wendy Dehn. She was athletic and gorgeous. And smart, too. We played sports together, sang at church together and dated best friends. She changed schools in 12th grade, but we remained friends until I got pregnant and started college. We had lunch together before Rick and I got married. We lost touch until I moved back to MD in 2006 and now keep up with each other on Facebook.

When I started my second year of college my pastor's daughter, Sheila (Lyon) Wall and I became best friends. We studied together, even taking a two week Science course at TTU in Tennessee, staying in an apartment and everything! and prayed together for life, studies and our husbands. I became very interested in a young man that started visiting our church and we became very close. I was sure he was going to ask me out...maybe even be the "one" when he came over my house alone and asked to talk to me. He ended up talking about Sheila and telling me of his plan to ask her dad if they could date. They were married in 1994 and have 5 children. She attends my parents' church and if I attend a function with my mom I get to see her. Our lives are very different and it is hard to reconnect with her, but I will always be grateful for the friendship we had.

I met Holly during my fourth year of teaching. We hung out with a group of other teachers for awhile and grew to be best friends. She regulary spent the night at my apartment and I at hers. We went to aerobics together, vacationed together and had dinner together and just enjoyed being together. She knows everything about me and still loves and accepts me. We even lost a very close friend and grieved together. She was in my wedding and came to visit me in TX a month after I moved, knowing I would need someone to come see me after moving 1300 miles away from everyone.  We wrote each other regularly and kept in touch making sure to see each other when I visited MD for vacation. When we moved back to MD, Holly decided to take a teaching job in VA. We were able to go see her this summer and had a great time. Of course, she is on Facebook and my cell phone's speed dial.

When Rick and I got married we each inherited each others' friends. I was introduced to life long friends of his, Brad and Rachelle Powell. They were with Rick through his first marriage and the divorce. They were Devin and Cody's godparents. They even flew to MD for the wedding, Brad standing in as a groomsmen. When we arrived in TX Brad and Rachelle were some of the first to welcome us and help us unpack. They babysat for us, went to church with us, made anniversary dinners for us and helped us move the two other times we moved in TX. Rachelle and I became best friends, not because we had to, but we because we needed to...we needed each other and knew God had allowed us to become best friends. We both have a passion for scrapbooking and parenting and were even pregnant at the same time with Noah and her son Ryan. We can go weeks without talking and then talk for hours on the phone. She came to visit us a few months after we moved to MD and has been a prayer warrior for our family ever since. She was diagnosed with MS two years ago and handles her illness with grace.

I know it may seem like I have had too many best friends, but I do not think you can have too many. And I saved the best for last.

Even though, Wendy and I were best friends in HS, I had another friend who became my bestest friend, if I can even use that word and not be 13. Her name is Marcy (Perkins) Hershey. We became friends when she helped me ask out my first Christian boyfriend. I love her spunkiness, passion and inner (and outer) beauty. She ended up leaving the school we attended together, but we remained friends. We grew even closer when we ended up pregnant teens, having our sons just two months apart, naming both of them Joshua. She married her husband, Joe and I was her maid of honor. I picked her and Joshua up in the middle of the night once to keep them safe during a time when Joe was struggling with drug and alcohol addictions. She moved around a bit during her marriage and ended up back in MD when I met Rick. She was in my wedding, along with her daughter Katie, as the flower girl. When I moved to TX we lost touch with each other. She was going through a difficult time in her marriage and I prayed that I would see her again. I had tried to contact her and her phone number was disconnected, my Christmas card returned to sender.

When we moved back to MD in 2006 I sent a card to her mom's address hoping to be able to connect with her and I did. We talked on the phone and she came to visit. Since then we have stayed in touch by phone and Facebook. She has been through so much and is such a strong Christian wife and mother. We are still praying for her husband's salvation.

I know that each and every best friend I have had has had an important impact in my life, placed at the right time for the best reason and I am so blessed to have had so many. Of course, I did not mention my husband who is also my best friend and soul mate. But, I think that should be saved for another entry.