BFF

My youngest son has a best friend. I'll call him Sam.

Well, at least he and Sam were best friends on Thursday. Today is Monday, sooooo....it could have changed.

Their friendship has been an evolution, as they often are. It began last year, in Nursery 3. They hit it off immediately. Young male bonding over Magna-Tiles. They were sweet together. Holding hands on the way into school and sometimes in car line on the way out. They had in-depth discussions about the benefits and pitfalls being the class line leader or milk helper.

They had differences too. Sam was a healthy eater, devouring his fruit-and-veggie filled lunches while my son basically threw up in his mouth if you even mentioned the word "green."

Still, they were good together. At home, my son worked his friend's name into every conversation every two seconds. Mommy, do you know what Sam said today that was so funny? Mommy, can Sam and I have a play date? Mommy, Sam and I are going to go to high school/college/basketball school/work together. Mommy, I'm going to marry Sam.

Forget Jesus or Elijah. There has never been a more powerful presence at a dinner table than Sam has been at ours.

Then, in the middle of Nursery 3 Sam's family went on a sabbatical for six months. When you are five-years-old, six months feels like an eternity. Our son was devastated by this and spent every second of the entire six months talking about Sam, dreaming about Sam, making plans for when Sam came back.

But when Sam returned, their friendship had shifted. They weren't as close as they had been. My son had made new friends.

And then a few weeks ago we learned that Sam is moving to the East Coast for good. I broke the news to him gently. And he was crushed. Sam's impending departure catapulted him to the top of my son's BFF list once again. Obviously in denial, he began to discuss Sam's presence at his future birthday parties, play dates and sleepovers.

Anyone who heard Sam was moving offered our son a little smile and said something like: "Oh that's too bad. But he's so young. He'll make new friends."

And he will. Of course. He already has.


But the insinuation is always there that it's okay that his friend is moving because somehow this young friendship is expected to dissolve at some point. You can't actually think two little five-year-olds would remain friends forever. That's insane. I mean, they're too immature, too young.

And that sentiment, although well-intended, really annoys me. (Add it too the list, I know.)

Trust me, I realize that my son is just five. I share bathrooms with him for God's sakes. But I don't think it's fair to dismiss or discount young friendships just because they are, well, young. And in this field I consider myself a Jedi Master Ninjago Expert.

I met my best friends when I was just three years old. Or two-and-a-half. The age changes depending on which one of us you ask. Either way, at 42, that makes this friendship a remarkable 39-years old, give or take a few months.

Thirty-nine years. 


We met in nursery school. We didn't have Magna-Tiles, true. But we did have the super soft, pink or blue napkins at lunchtime at Child Development, and let me tell you, NOTHING bonds little girls together (or tears them apart) like the great pink or blue napkin debate.  


My mom doesn't remember who asked for the first play date. But from that moment on we were inseparable. And by inseparable I mean I don't think we spent more than two minutes apart for the next TEN YEARS. 


It wasn't always easy. Friendships that begin that early have to endure a lot. Who sleeps next to who on sleepovers. Who is better friends with whom. Who collects more "beads" on the playground. Whose hair feathers better? (Well, clearly NOT mine.) If one of us started spending too much time at school with other people, it was war. 

We did everything together. Everything. I had other friends, yes, but throughout grade school my eggs were primarily in the twins' basket. We called each other every morning to discuss our outfits for the day. We compared our moms' mac and cheese preparations. We liked the same boys. The younger twin (by 5 minutes) and I skated together for years. We went to camp together. We planning our weddings together. (I'm pretty sure that at one point or another we all planned to marry the same boy, and all live in the same house happily together....presumably in the Utah dessert.)

They remember my brother being born, my mom's hair twirling and my dad. We played and learned and laughed and fought and forgave and trick-or-treated and watched who shot JR together. My childhood was inextricably tied to them. 

Until.

One night on the way home from yet another weekend away skating, they dropped the bomb on me.

"We have to tell you something," one of them said. "We're moving."

I didn't buy it. I mean, there's NO WAY they'd ever leave me. I blew it off. "Moving? Uh huh. Sure." 

"No really, we are."

I challenged them. "Oh yeah? Where?"

"To Cornell."

Cornell? What the hell was Cornell? I had never heard of Cornell.

I shook my head. Nope. I told them it wasn't true. t told them that it wasn't funny.

They insisted it was true.

I got upset. Then angry. I am pretty sure I called them liars. 

When we stopped for gas I did what I still do best when I'm upset. I called my mom. 

"Mom," I whined. "The twins are being mean. They are telling me that they are moving. Can I put them on and will you tell them to stop?"

There was a long pause. And then my mom's voice: "They wanted to tell you themselves."

The earth shifted. I don't know that anyone else felt it which was really odd considering it registered a 974 PLUS on my personal Richter Scale. The rest of the car ride home was miserable. I don't know that we spoke. I'm sure I cried. 

The following few weeks were rough too. (HUGE downplay.) I remember completely and utterly losing my cool and calling their house and berating them on the phone for what seemed like hours. I said our friendship had been lie. A farce. I screamed. I yelled. I cried. We all cried. And their mom got on the phone and told me that "that was enough." And she was right. It was. I hung up feeling even worse. My parents tried to comfort me, but come on. I mean, how do you make a 13-year-old feel better about losing a limb?

In the end, they didn't move to Cornell. They moved to Texas. Which also might as well have been somewhere off the coast of Australia.

On the day they moved, our parents took a gazillion pictures of us. On the couch. In the yard. In front of the (embarrassing reveal here) 1,700 posters of Michael Jackson that decorated every square inch of my room. "Smile!" they'd encourage as we sat there simply trying not to aspirate and die.

I found these pictures recently and they are THE MOST depressing pictures EVER TAKEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Or at least in Central Illinois. Or at least on our old street. They are also painfully honest and telling. Three sad teenage girls with bad haircuts trying to smile beyond the pain of a very lonely future. It sounds melodramatic now, but that day it was truly ALL THAT. At least it was for me.

That day I followed them to school where they said their last goodbyes at lunchtime. I trailed pathetically along behind them throughout the cafeteria feeling jealous that they were actually wasting time saying goodbye to all these other "friends" who couldn't possibly care as much as I did.

And then my family piled into our car and followed their family to the highway, where we all pulled off on the shoulder and had hugged one last time. We all cried. Again. And they drove off taking a piece of my soul with them.

Luckily my paralyzing fear of flying hadn't yet begun. And so my parents got me a plane ticket and put me on a plane to visit them -- probably BEFORE they'd even made it out of the state themselves.

Unbelievably, the friendship endured. Thrived even. Which is remarkable considering we had EVERYTHING working against us. First, it was the 80s. There was no iPhone. No email. No texting. No Facebook. No Skype. Long Distance calls were expensive and monitored and held over your head as a reward for not suffocating your sibling or passing math. But perhaps the biggest obstacle we faced wasn't the distance. It was the fact that we were teenage girls. You know, the species that delights in changing best friends every hour on the hour.

But we had pen and paper and a persistent will. And that trumps everything. Yes, even the iPhone.

And so, here we are, 39 years later. I've gotten over the devastation of the move. Sort of.

The younger twin and I still talk all at least once a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Sometimes three times a day. We've had periods where we didn't talk over the years, but it never mattered. We always picked up right where we left off. She was the first phone call I made when my dad died. I got one of the first gut-wrenching calls from her when she suffered the unthinkable. She introduced me to my husband. My boys know her. They know her boys. I can still taste their mom's mac and cheese.

The older twin and I don't talk on the phone nearly enough. But she is still an unremovable piece of me. After all, she was the one who told me in kindergarten that yes, I DID have to wear underwear to school, even if I was wearing a (oh so pretty) long, thick, quilted, patchwork dress.

Some bonds are simply unbreakable.

And so. My point is that often the youngest friendships can be the most enduring and most important. Because as you grow up you begin to create yourself. Your appearance. Your character. And there are fewer and fewer people out there, besides your family, who actually knew YOU before you became YOU. Those friends need to be treasured and saved and preserved.

I don't know what the future holds for my son and Sam. They've only had two years together. Maybe not a strong enough foundation to survive time and distance. But you never know. And so I will certainly not discount it.

I have told my son, that if they have the will, they will also find a way.

LYLAS.

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