Happy Birthday Friend

Yesterday was the birthday of a Very Important Person!



She will never be written about in famous books, or seen on the evening news, unless she decides to throw a brick in her neighbor's window to keep the music from blaring through their paper thin row house walls. She is called friend by many and MOM by my three nephews by decree. We decreed a very long time ago that she would be Aunt Judy and I would be Aunt Sue to whomever we both ended up raising as children. It just seemed better that way.


She laughs so loudly that people often look at her and wonder what the joke is. Usually she is just amused at some mundane daily event and it has struck her as hilarious. One cannot help but join her in laughter because undoubtedly she has begun crying and rolling on her side by the time you figure out what the funny thing is....



Her name is Judy. I call her Meatball. You figure it out.

She and I have been Best Friends Forever(BFF), which in human years translates to before she was married and I was a young mother of 3. We both were attending the same church in Ithaca, New York where she went to college majoring in music and I was born and raised, majoring in motherhood. It was an odd friendship to start, she so young and silly coming from a really messy home life, and me the more mature and stable one with the normal background and family life.(well I thought so anyhow).
There would be no way we would be more than passing friends, I thought. How could we be? She is so immature, laughing all the time, screaming so loudly, acting so young.

Furthermore, one year as time plodded on and we would see each other occasionally, she asked if she could come to my daughter Becca's birthday party, Number 6 , as I recall. Even now I am remembering how much I was angered by her thoughtless and foolish forgetfulness. She came , to my daughter's Birthday Party, without the cake!! As I recall, she mumbled some apologetic words of nonsense and dashed away to the local supermarket and purchased the fanciest cake she could find, spending way too much money to be even remotely sensible and brought it back to the party grinning from ear to ear.


Why does a person become your BFF?



It is an interesting question and one that surprises me even as I think it through.

I am blessed with many good friends, many acquaintances, and even a larger than average batch of really, truly, special friends. But the BEST one? The one that you think of before your husband and children and family? The one that truly can annoy the living daylights out of you and yet you cannot bear to go through more than two life- altering events without asking her to hash out the nitty gritty details with you? You absolutely MUST see her SOON??!! And by life -altering I am talking about the wrong color of a dress you purchased on sale, or a missing coffee mug or a piece of juicy neighbor gossip you need to convey. That kind of life-altering.

When my husband told me he had decided he had made a mistake marrying me 7 years ago, Judy was the one I called sobbing into the phone to, after I walked out the front door and collapsed at the kitchen table of my daughter's house in shock and disbelief. "Really?", she quipped, so amazed that it only took him 30 years to fully realize this mistake...."He must be crazy or have gone insane or something!?" she screamed, "I'll come kill him! " Now that's a best friend.



Aunt Judy has never forgotten one of my children's birthdays intentionally. As all of the 7 children know full well, she may forget it, and probably will, unintentionally, but it makes it all the nicer. In her remembering she will outspend and out apologize anyone on the planet with the coolest most fashionable, most 'in' present the stores have to offer. She is the one who took the kids to see the latest movie, always buying the Large size popcorn and of course a Coke at the theater. She is the aunt who had to have the boys come for overnights so they could play the Nintendo games we couldn't afford to buy.



Judy loved my son Danny too.The Danny that died at age 9 months and a long 24 years ago, son. She was with me when he came home , babysitting our 4 children who we needed to leave suddenly in order to drive out to Pittsburgh and retrieve him within 24 hours from his birth mother. She was with me when we discovered he wasn't going to live any longer than February 1, 1984. She told me that day that because of Danny she and her husband were going to have a son and name him Danny someday(and they did) and she and her husband were going to adopt a handicapped child someday (and they did).



My BFF is outrageous. I am orderly and organized. She is disorderly and disorganized.
I buy cards, remember occasions, send people notes on time, write my newsletters and stamp them and send them off. Judy buys the cards, for sure, she buys the stamps, for sure, she remembers that friends and relatives have special days, to be sure. But she still has the stamps and cards and I know this because yesterday , at her party for her own birthday that she threw, I saw some of them. They were under the pile of papers I was looking through to find where she put the birthday napkins.

Oh, and speaking of Judy's Birthday Party....Judy called me yesterday morning and giggled, "want to come up for a birthday lunch today?" "Sure",said I, knowing I had blocked the day off for just such a last minute invite. After all, we have been friends for 30+ years and a BFF knows the ropes. " What shall I bring?" I foolishly queried. "Oh I am going to the store now and I have it covered, just bring Margie and her 5 kids!"


So we traveled to Great Aunt Judy's house, kids in tow, presents wrapped and ready, to a deliciously and lovingly prepared Birthday Lunch. We had appetizers because she loves appetizers, we had yummy food on birthday plates and napkins, and we had birthday cake that she had made when she awoke early at 4:00 am unable to sleep that morning. The kids bounced around her small row home, scampering past the piles of papers and unused stamps, digging out the special Hess trucks from Danny's bedroom, and chasing the cat(oh, she has my cat's kitten Sunny because I couldn't bear that he went to a stranger...)out from his hiding place.



Have you been able to tell yet why Judy is my BFF?
She is one in a million, she makes me laugh when I want to die and I have never ever heard her say a single negative thing about any member of my family, even when I want to kill them.
She's a keeper and I love her to pieces, even if I can't think of a single thing she was ever on time to. Being on time is overrated anyhow.