On Best, Good Friends

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

There’s nothing I could write that would adequately convey my affection for Meg or the dearness of our two decades long friendship. But when her birthday rolls around every year, I feel a sense of duty to memorialize her – I can’t bear for her to be forgotten.

I also want to speak honestly about what it is like to lose a companion – a bosom friend and kindred spirit, lest the light of her memory and all the good times I had with her grow dim.

The best (or maybe the worst) way to describe what it’s like when your best friend dies is that it feels like your arm has been cut off — the arm and hand you use all the time. You start your daily routine, but suddenly realize you have to relearn how to do everything. You took for granted the ease of the small things, and you understand your other arm just isn’t as strong – your coordination isn’t as good. You’ve been weakened, in a way.

Meg and I met in dance class when we were 12. We would go on to do gymnastics and cheerleading together for the next six years, take every class together in high school, and talk every single day of our lives for the next 25 years. She stood by me on my wedding day as my Maid of Honor. She cheered me on in every endeavor I pursued; she kept all my secrets. And Meg was the kind of person who could say, “I see all the dark and not-so-pretty things about you, and I love you anyway.” She was absolutely the wittiest person I have ever known and had more talents than I could number.

But, mostly Meg’s life was marked by selflessness. She never wanted attention drawn to herself and was totally others focused. She quietly served the special needs community in her city for 15 years. An annual fundraiser has been created in her honor there, so others can give to special needs adults and families to carry on her legacy of grace and generosity. And on what would have been her 39th birthday, I want to lift her up – to tell the world what they missed if they didn’t have the good pleasure of knowing her – to say her legacy of generosity, kindness, unconditional love and friendship lives on.

I wish for everyone to have a friend as good as Meg. Here’s to the best: the Diana to my Anne, the Mary Ann to my Wanda, the Idgie to my Ruth — my right-hand gal and my truest and best, good friend.