We weren’t much more than children when we met. Both new brides of young airmen stationed overseas, we were thrilled to find our hometowns were in adjacent states. We became fast friends. You do that when you’re a military wife. Your friends become family. Cindy looked extremely young for her age. Seriously, she looked twelve when she and her new husband moved into the flat below ours. She was eighteen. I was all of twenty. We hung out together while our husbands worked. We did crafts. We shopped. I think we tried our hand at knitting. We shared our families when they came to visit. Her “Nana” became my “Nana”…my mom, her mom. We shopped a lot. We didn’t buy much, but we shopped. It wasn’t long after Cindy arrived that I became pregnant with my first child. One afternoon, Cindy and I were at the hardware store buying batteries for a flashlight when the jolly clerk asked her, “Are you having fun shopping with your mummy?” I whipped around and asked, “Excuse me…what did you say?” He repeated that he was asking “my daughter” if she was having fun shopping with her mum. I nearly died! I mean, really…you feel so awful about yourself when you’re big and fat and hot and sweaty…then someone mistakes your best friend as your daughter. And you aren’t two years apart! It was a turning point in my life. My youthful innocence was left on that hardware store floor.
Cindy and I have gone great lengths of time without seeing each other. Yet, each visit picks up where we left off in the conversation as if one had just left the room for a moment. We have a shared experience that bonded us forever. We were so far from home, we needed each other. She threw a surprise baby shower for me. There were a few people but far more gifts than attendees. She proudly handed me the first gift and asked me to read the tag. It was from my mom who was stateside. I burst into tears. Not that I just missed my mom or was just hormonal. No…this friend had gotten my mom’s address from my husband, wrote and introduced herself, then told my mom about the shower and could she let all my friends and family know. When the boxes arrived, she carefully hid the gifts which was no small feat in our tiny British flats. She kept the secret knowing how much it would mean to me to have gifts from the family I was missing terribly. I look back now and realize my mom never got to see me pregnant with either of my babies. I wish she could have.
Cindy has always been there for me…not always in person, but she’s always been a phone call away. She cried with me when I shared the news of Mr. Virgo’s death. I fly in and out of Dayton so that I can get the chance to visit with her the night before I travel. It always makes a joyful experience even more wonderful. Thank you for always being there, my friend. You are one of life’s true gems! ❤️
“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”
Romans 12:10 NIV