What Perfect Timing

I have this friend.  I've come to rely on her for so many things.  Her wisdom, which is so spot on it amazes me.  Her ability to understand a lot of things about my life.  Enduring some very, very tough circumstances in her own life and to have handled them the way she has is a book that needs to be written. She boosts my self esteem, she says the exact right thing or knows when not to say anything. She's become my therapist, whether she likes it or not.  She sees beauty in everything.  We share a great love of music and find both solace and joy in just the right song.  We share the same very quirky sense of humor.  Nothing is off limits or too weird, which I love!!   She rails at the injustice of the world like most people, but unlike most people, she tries to change it. She always has a ready smile, a ready tear, and the backbone of a steel sword.  She has a marriage that makes me green with envy....25 years of ups and downs and you can still just feel the raw powerful love that dissipates for most couples after about 6 years. And not to be too crude, but she is one heck of a sassified woman, in the words of Clarence Carter, (if you don't understand, google the lyrics to "Strokin'!!)  But that's off the subject!  Back to her and I!   She has become ESSENTIAL to me in the last 18 months. SHE JUST GETS IT.... probably because of her own life circumstances and dealing with a very special special needs child and the fact that she is just this free spirit who sees life through eyes that very few people possess.  Obviously, I've come to value and treasure our friendship greatly. What is so ironic about our friendship, is that we have lived very parallel lives; we went to the same grade school, the same high school, we have many of the same friends, we have always known each other by name and sight, but we didn't become friends until about a year and a half ago.  I have Facebook to thank for that. We've marveled at the fact that, despite the fact of being very kindred spirits, it took us 40 years to become friends.  Last Saturday, she spent the day away from her own family and came and sat in a tiny, claustrophobic 8x8 room in the ER and acted like it didn't suck. I always have volunteers to come to the hospital with Adrianne and I, but I almost always politely turn them down because the room is cramped, constant people in and out, and frankly ,I just don't want to make small talk. But talking with her isn't like that. She somehow manages to get below the surface that I don't usually go with many people. But anyway, back to why it took us so long to connect and create one of the most authentic friendships I've ever had.

It was just the right time.  During the worst time of my life, I found the friend that JUST GETS IT and what a blessing she is in my life.  And Adrianne gets how fabulous she is, too, and she made sitting in that crappy ER room almost fun....Adrianne has the same irreverant sense of humor as she and I so it was perfect, and I wanted Adrianne to get to know this person who has come to mean so much to me and vice versa.  I wanted her to understand the beauty that radiates from my daughter's soul...and it only takes one meeting to get that. 

So there is my answer as to why we have known each other for over 40 years and have only relatively recently become friends. And now I don't know what I'd do without her. 

Deanne Tomasich Stephens, I love you with all my heart.  Thank you for you.