My elementary, middle school and high school years were filled with amazing memories. I am still in touch with many of those friends, thanks to social media, but there is one friend who I have had a relationship with since sixth grade beginning band class. In the summers we were always at each other’s homes (usually hers because they had cable and we could watch MTV) and I often went out of town with her family to “the country” where I learned how to fish and camp, ride mini-bikes (that shot oil on our legs), shot bb guns and ate ravioli from a can.
When we started learning to play our instruments, the neighbors on 13th street always had “entertainment” as they heard the theme from “Rocky” and the fight song played by an alto saxophone and oboe (how could I forget “Hit Me with Your Best Shot”). 😊 Yes, we were quite the musicians. Her garage became our recording studio where we taped our concerts, and those recordings were filled with tons of laughter. When it was time to go home, we always walked each other halfway to the crack in the street at Tanya M’s driveway.
We didn’t always “run in the same circles in school,” but we were only a block away when it mattered. After high school I went to college and she went to work, and we always managed to keep in touch. We still would go up to “the country” but now we would take wine coolers along. I just don’t have a single bad memory if Cyndi is involved. Her family loved me as if I was their own, and to this day her mom, Ms. Dessa, is only a phone call away.
She was a bridesmaid in my wedding and my bachelorette party was just the two of us in my new house drinking wine and laughing. It was perfect. When my mom died after my first son was born, Cyndi and her sister came and took care of him while we traveled to Austin to spread Mama’s ashes. And when her Dad died my husband and I left as soon as possible to make sure the music for the funeral was handled well.
Cyndi and I have gone several years not talking simply because of life being life. But I will never forget the phone call I received at work from her brother-in-law. She had been in a horrific car accident and to this day, I can’t remember the drive from Houston to Tyler. But I will never forget seeing her, lying in the hospital…it is burned into my mind. That was fifteen years ago.
She has endured more than most people have by age 50 with pain and medical issues and I know that if I ever had the opportunity to ask my Creator one question, it would be, “Why did Cyndi have to suffer so much?”
I will never understand why a person gets more than their share of heartache in the world, but what I do know for sure at this moment in my life is that I am so grateful for my “friend of a lifetime.”
My friend who…
- never judges because she loves like no one else I know.
- has a heart filled with compassion despite living with pain.
- has gifts to share that are in her…she just doesn’t know it yet.
- knows things about me that even I have forgotten.
- has always been more than a sister to me than a friend.
I can’t imagine a world without her. Some things are on the horizon that are going to be life-changing and I can’t wait to see it. No one deserves it more.
Happy Birthday, Cyndi, I love you.
