This spring I reconnected with an old friend, out of nowhere we were at the same place at the same time. I’m a strong believer in nothing just happens, I am also in tune with the different seasons of my life. At first, I didn’t see her, someone pointed her out to me. When our eyes met I remained motionless. I wasn’t about to approach her I couldn’t, the memories of why we fell out in the first place came rushing in and left me motionless and angry. Something, I don’t know what I was feeling …maybe hurt, I’ll call it hurt, hurt wouldn’t allow me to smile or my feet to move. The best I could do was put my hands on my hip, cock my head and hip to the right and sarcastically mumble loud enough for her to hear “umph…well looka here” …she spoke first:
Friend: (cautious) “Hey how you dewin”?
Me: (real nasty) “Blessed and extremely privileged, and you”?
Friend: (emotional) “Well, Michelle I can’t complain, God has been too good to me”. Then she went on to count all her blessings. Yada, yada , yada. She went on and on about her son and brothers, nephews and how well they were doing, and how her niece Michelle had been married for almost two years and had just given birth to a baby girl. Then she asked “and how’s your family, how’s your children and your mother how is she doing”?
Me: (immodest) “the kids are good, real good, my mother is my mother, still the same, still confusing as all get out (click here). I’m in the process of divorcing ‘whophead’.
Friend: (curious) “what!!... What happened? You guys seemed so happy, so in love”
Me: (mean nasty spiteful) “yeah…I guess we were just looking for the same things out of life”
Friend: (probing) “I don’t understand, what do you mean”?
Me: (harsh) “did I stutter? Yeah!!! duh…like I said we were both searching for the same things…a good man!”
Friend: (taken aback) “gurrrrl…no!” you don’t mean, he’s, he’s he’s….”
Me: (arrogant) “say it…gay, faggot, down low doo-doo masher. And here’s the gotcha, that faggot wasn’t man enough to even tell me. Had me stressed out running around like boo boo the clown, losing weight hair falling out trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Now, I don’t know what to believe. Did he ever really love me? Or was I just a diversion to prove to his father, family and friends he was straight? Sometimes, I feel like he was drowning and pulled me into his whirlpool to save him.”
Friend: (genuine concern) “you alright? You ain’t got the AIDS…do you?”
Me: (thanking God) “Praise Jesus! NO!”
Friend: (hands raised up) “Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!, Praise Him, He is so worthy, so worthy of our praises. I’m so glad that you are alright. (rage) that dirty mother&*%#!@!, Lord, Jesus!! forgive me, tell me, do we need to call _____ to kick his a#%, Oh’ Jesus forgive me. I’m sorry but, that is so foul, how he gonna drag you into his funk, knowing he was gay? (raised hands, speaking in tongue and shaking head) Lord Jesus, I best not see his triflin’ a*%, Oops! Jesus forgive me, umph, umph, umph!! no telling what I might do! (resumes speaking in tongue) Help me Jesus!! See that’s why I never liked his bourgeois parents all up in the church frontin’. (laughing) ‘member that time we all went to
Me: (self-assured) “me? Yeah, I’m alright. Truth be told, I had to let that anger go, if anything I feel sorry for him. Imagine how it must be going thru life living a lie. You never mentioned your mother. She finally has a granddaughter, how does she feel about that?”
Friend: (grief stricken) “Michelle, my mother passed. Matter of fact she died on the same day as Coretta Scott King. Just seemed like after Laurie (friends older sister) died, she lost her will to live. Kept saying it wasn’t natural for a parent to bury their child.
The tears began to flow and we embraced. In all our years of friendship I had never seen her cry. (Once, I had heard her voice crack on the phone years ago, when I was trying to convince her why she couldn’t cold cock her boss and remain employed). And at that moment just like that I knew that our season of 
separation was over. Whoa! this heifer needed me, and I needed her. In an instant, all the anger just left poof!! gone. I didn’t matter that she didn’t come to my wedding, didn’t pay me the money she owed, talked about me behind my back, (trust, men gossip more than women) or how I would always make excuses for her being so evil and mean. Constantly explaining, to friends how she was really cool, once you got to know her…it just didn’t matter anymore. I didn’t care. The good memories overpowered the bad. Memories of how she taught me to drive, or how we would close all the clubs down, and how every Friday we would eat at a different Legal’s and the waiter and I would have to suffer through her boring account of how she knew the owner(“no,not him. His brother, Roger) or how we would travel every 4th to Woods Hole, just to talk about how snobbish some black folks get. Did Cape Verdeans (sp) realize they are black? Every year she would say the same thing “idiots, don’t they know
Sometimes I’ve wondered about the word ‘friend’.Who is a friend? Does it have something to do with consistency? Are my expectations to high? Are my expectations poorly defined? Is it fair for me to ask what I’m willing to give in return? Doesn’t the Word say ‘good measure, pressed down’? Can friends survive in a 70-30, 80-20 relationship? Does it always have to be 50-50? Friends are human, and you can only ask so much from another human, right?
Since spring, we have been inseparable. Shopping, eating out, movies, talking on the phone, getting on each other nerves. She takes my children every other weekend. And we never speak about the past. Truth: I've got to work on my pride. I really did want to tell her how much she hurt me. Then I realized she knew. It wouldn’t serve any purpose to bring up the past.
When I was a little girl every Sunday I would sing in the choir. Every Sunday I would ask my father (or heathen if you ask my mother). “Daddy, are you going to be at church in time to see me march in”? And every Sunday he would reply “baby, I might not be there when you march in, but I will be there when you march out”. Isn’t that all that matters? The End… We are friends again, and really that’s all that matters in life. The end is all that matters, at the end of the day is all I concentrate on.
The word friend probably means something different to each person. Some dictionaries define friend: “a person whom one know, likes, and trust.”
I define friend as someone who holds a piece of my heart…someone to laugh, cry and feel with…
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