Thanks for the Memories

I was five years old when my family moved into a new neighborhood.  Next door, there was a little brown-haired girl playing with her Barbie’s on her porch.  I walked over and asked if I could play with her and we’ve been friends for thirty-seven years.

My friend’s family also owned several houses on a large property an hour away in the mountains.  I’d spend weekends there and in the summer stay for several days.  We’d swim all day pretending to be mermaids and put frogs in the pool and watch them swim through our goggles.  We’d lay on the hot sidewalk in our bathing suits to warm our wet bodies after swimming and one time my friend dumped an entire bucket of worms on my head, because she thought was it funny.

In the winter we’d attach a sled to a snowmobile and my friend would always make me sit in the sled so she could whip me around and we’d ice skate on a natural pond in their woods - just the two of us.  I’m not going to get into how I got a very bad black eye one winter, but it had something to do with her pushing me too fast on the ice and I didn’t know how to skate.  I still owe her for that one.

I had many meals with her family, both at their home and out at restaurants.  My friend is an only child and I have no sisters - so sisters we became.  One night during the summer we made rice crispy treats and sat down to watch the scary movie, Tarantula, where spiders were crawling all over everyone and I guess taking over the world or something when we heard light tapping and screeching on the window.  We were alone in the house and jumped out of our seats and ran to a corner of the room where we huddled in fear.  And then the same sound came from another window.

Suddenly, her father whips open the door with a loud “AAAAGGH!” and we ran to him curling our little fists and pounding on him for scaring us while he laughed so hard his face turned red.  It’s one of our favorite memories.

Her father was very tall with broad shoulders and brown hair.  He was a man’s man and no one crossed him or his family, yet he was always very gentle and protective with us. 

I found out today, that he died from cancer on Sunday.  Just sixty years old.

I didn’t think I’d be writing about death again so soon. 

I wanted to honor his memory in some way and say Thanks.  Thanks for the fond memories, for all the good times, for being so very good to me when I was just a little girl.  I always enjoyed my time with you and your family, and although in more recent years we didn’t see each other much - when we did, it was as though no time had passed at all.

You’re a good man and you’ll be missed terribly.

R.I.P. Bob

*This video does not come in a smaller size to fit here but it's so apropos that I still wanted to use it.