A great Man

I have a freind that I grew up with. By grew up I don't mean from when we were little kids, I mean from when we were in our mid 20's. I met her when we were both working in the same hell hole. I was recently seperated from my husband and she was trying to get rid of her dead beat live in boyfriend. After working with her for a year or so and many after work beers we came to the conclusion that moving in together would benefit both of our broke asses. She booted out the dead beat and I moved in. I had my two kids and she had one daughter. The kids thought it was great as this began the every morning adventure of what could they have possibly gotten into now. We worked nights and started out with one sitter that would come to our house. After about 3 months of her being late, feeding her boyfriend and making his lunches off our weekly allowance of food and screwing us out of money we let her go and went on to taking our kids to my friends house. This meant picking them up every night at 1230. They'd be wide awake and we'd be dead tired. These kids would then get up at the crack of dawn and get into everything. Our girls invented the Maxi Pad ski. We had this never ending hallway and they sprinkled powdered sugar down the hallway and proceeded to attach the maxi pads to their feet and have a ball. To her and I of course this was at first funny and then turned to grasping the fact that they used a whole box and those suckers were expensive.

People would come over and think we were the cruelest mothers in the world as we had a lock on the fridge and the cupboard door. We had to or there would be a food fest every morning. We were poor, we couldn't afford for them to pour 1/2 gallon of milk on the floor or feed the cat leftovers. These adventures would be by 6am in the morning. We tried for awhile to take turns on 6am patrol only to find if we got up they didn't.

I lived with her for about 2 years. In that 2 years we both recovered from financial doom to getting our heads above water , each bought a decent car and had money in the bank. We figured we were doing okay when one day we were able to take the kids out to eat twice in one day. I remember the day I told her I was going to be moving back to the south side as my son was going to school there and the commute daily was rough. We both cried. But it was time for each of us to get on our own. We still worked together and went out together.

It's been 23 years and to this day we have remained friends. We were at each others weddings and of course giving the message to the new husband to "take care of my friend". We see each other at weddings and unfortunatly funerals. Kellie's dad passed away last week and his funeral was yesterday. The entire time I have known her we shared the same thoughts on our fathers. They had the most influence in our lives. When we would need help with household fixings it was either one of them we would call. They didn't just come and fix these things, they showed us how. They had equal hugs and hidden candy in their pockets for each of the kids.

Her dad had cancer and it spread throughout his entire body. She never told me until she wrote a little note in her Christmas card. Her husband called me the other day to give me the news.
Kellies family is very close which is a great advantage for her mom. At the service the grandchildren got up and spoke of their Grandfather. I was impressed but not shocked at how well they got through it. I'm not quite sure I'd be able to get through a speech like that without breaking down. Then again, I think people would not expect you too.

To my friend I say I am so sorry for your loss. Your dad was a great man, a loving father and like my dad knew exactly what to say to get us on the right track.