The Forever Kind

I’ve been running around the state for the past few days attending funeral services and birthday celebrations. While attending the funeral remembrances, I ran into some old friends from high school. I dated one, Karen. Another friend, Sue, and I hung out for thousands of hours during high school. The last time I saw the two of them was Ruth’s Michigan memorial in June of 2023.

While we live different lives, we’re each doing well. Sue and I spoke with each other on three occasions at three separate events. We were remembering our friend, Mitch.

I wrote about Sue several years ago. Her story below was one of my first posts.

There are many stories about “the girl next door”. I learned this summer that one of my friends married his. They lived next to each other in Jackson, Michigan in their early teens (he was 16 and she was 14), started dating and eventually married. I expect a lot of neighborhood relationships evolved in such a way.

My “girl next door” was Suzy and she actually lived across the street and down a couple of houses. If you read the story about the fire hydrant, she lived in the house directly across the street from it. I don’t remember when Suzy and her family moved into the neighborhood, but we didn’t become immediate friends. Our relationship began when we were in junior high and expanded through high school.

We were always welcome in each other’s homes, though I spent more time at her house than she did at mine. We traveled in a “pack” with others our age much like young teens of today. The “pack” went to Edgewater Amusement Park, our houses just to hang out, and the occasional movie.

The movies were a Saturday or Sunday afternoon “thing”. It got us out of the house which I expect was a form of mental health for the teens and their parents. We engaged in this exploration during the cooler months of the year.

During one of our movie afternoons, my relationship with Suzy could have taken a turn beyond friendship, but it didn’t. I’d like to say that I remember the day and the movie, but I don’t. What I do remember, and I expect she doesn’t, is that I almost held her hand during one of the movies. What I mean by almost is that I thought about it, wanted to, but didn’t. I sat through most of the film, planning to make a move towards her hand, which she dangled provocatively close to mine, but just as I was about to “go for it” the movie ended. I considered that move for about an hour and forty-five minutes. As I was about to go “all in”, facing the possibility of rejection, the opportunity vanished. All I had left was sweaty palms and armpits. Nerves can make a guy react that way. Things may have worked out differently if there was a double feature.

My inaction turned out to be a good thing for both of us. Knowing now, what I didn’t know then, if I had acted sooner and we did actually hold hands, it would have some point in the not-too-distant future led to kissing. Kissing would have undoubtedly altered our relationship forever.

Our relationship was one based upon true friendship. We developed a bond that was good for both of us. We talked about things that we didn’t discuss with other friends. We trusted each other. I sought her advice and counsel regarding a couple of girls and she, in turn, asked for my input regarding a couple of guys.

While some of our conversations were face to face, many were not. Today’s teens can thank Suzy and me for the development of “texting”. We were the original “texters”, however, our “texts” were in paper form. No electronics. We passed notes to each other during school.

I wrote most of my notes during school hours, which I believe had a direct correlation to my grade point average, and I expect that she did the same. It was a subversive tactic, and it worked well. My favorite part of the process, beyond gathering important information and advice, was the actual exchange of the notes. Most of the time we exchanged them secretly as we passed each other in the hall or during the entrance and exit process of a particular classroom. I remember one room that I had a class for one hour, she had the next, and I returned for the third period. This was a bonanza. We made three exchanges within a timeframe that couldn’t have been more than 113 minutes – max.

This hand exchange ended up being too easy, so we started wedging our notes under the desks. The desks had the traditional slide in from the side, tablet arm, setup. We wrote our note, wedged it under the desk using the tablet top support arm, and let science take over. I believe that there is a scientific principle that states, “An object wedged securely between two immoveable objects, remains immovable itself.”

When we invoked the “wedge technique”, we simply rolled our eyes at one another. It was sort of an over the shoulder eyeroll that included a quick reverse nod of our slightly tilted head. It took place during the classroom entrance and exit process. This was the signal that there would not be a hand exchange, but “you’ll find a note in the usual wedge location”. We didn’t have teacher-imposed seating charts, so we made sure that we sat in the same seats during three successive class periods. Pure genius.

Suzy and I were close friends for several years. College took me away from the neighborhood and all of the kids that I ran with in the “pack”. Some went to college or other forms of higher education. Others went directly into the workforce or entered the military.

A few, like Suzy, married guys and gals from the neighborhood. Suzy married Lee. Lee lived on the same street as my friend, fire hydrant Mitch. Mitch married Suzy’s younger sister, Sandy. Suzy’s second younger sister, Deanna, married a boy two houses down the street on the other side of my fire hydrant. Exactly twenty-five yards as the crow flies..

Lee died decades ago. Sue remarried a man named Mike. He passed a few years ago, so she’s a widow for a second time.

Sue and I attended Mitch’s funeral on Monday. Mitch and Sandy were married for about thirty years before she died of cancer. After being alone for four years he married a second woman, Connie.  That was eighteen years ago. Now she’s a widow.

And then there’s me.  I’ve been a widower for twenty-six months.

None of us contemplated the losses we’ve experienced.  When you’re young, you think you’ll live forever. Life doesn’t work that way.  If you’re lucky, you still have friends who understand how it used to be and love you no matter how much time has passed. Those friends are the forever kind.