My Best Friend

On the day after Christmas, my best friend moved 1000 miles away to San Antonio, Texas.  Let me tell you about her…

Wendy Garland has been my best friend since we both got stuck in a small country school when our parents moved to the boonies.  She rode my bus, which was full of kids from kindergarten through 12th grade. That was a little weird.  Who on earth would put little kids in the same bus with middle and high school terrors, really. 

 The first day of school for my brothers and I was in November, 1988.  I was a sophomore.  It was not fun walking down the endlessly long driveway to stand at the end of the street waiting for a stupid bus to take me straight to hell.  It was even less fun entering it, making sure my little brothers had a spot to sit where I could be close.  I was the only high school student sitting in the front of the bus, and I hated the feeling I got from the staring eyes of everyone behind me. (still hate that feeling, so if you are staring behind me, please alert me so I can turn around and stare back. LOL.)

Enter Wendy.

Equally miserable, as I found out later… her parents had moved a mile down the road from me about two months earlier.  She had been there since the beginning of the school year and had not been enjoying the new school at all.  We got to know each other and found that hating our parents for moving us out of our happy lives was our common ground.

Turns out, it was probably the best thing our parents could have done.  She has been the best friend I could ever hope for, the sister I never had, and a huge inspiration to me in so many ways.  She is the strongest, smartest, most independent and driven woman I have ever met.  Wendy has stuck by me through thick and thin, when I was on top of the world, and when I was buried beneath it.

She is beautiful, graceful, and most importantly, she DOES right. Standing up for what is true and good is hard in this world, but she is right there doing it. I love her for that.

The piece I submitted for today was made last fall, so I am cheating a little by submitting it today.  It is a tribute to my friend, who I hope to walk with in Paris some day when we are fat and old.