From Sylvain: 1. Did you have a best friend growing up? What is your fondest memory of time spent with this person? Also, what was the absolute craziest thing you two did?
I had several best friends growing up.
Two have had lifelong impacts on me.
J lived on the next street over. We were together daily in the summer through grade school and junior high. She was the youngest of four, and was largely unsupervised. I love playing at her house. J and I did wild and crazy things like jumping on trampolines, playing barbies despite our older ages, and deciding which of the Monkeys we wanted as our boyfriends. We had a public life, which looked like everyone else’s. But in our private times, we were silly and playful, and were able to be the little girls we needed to be.
Sadly, we lost J to suicide when I was 16. She was 15. I knew she was in trouble. I knew. And I was brave and strong enough to tell a teacher. Just like you are supposed to do. The teacher did do what she was supposed to do, and followed up. The parents were aware of the situation, and J was seeing a therapist and was on anti-depressants (which, in fact, she was hiding away to take all at once). I will never forget coming home from a summer at camp, and going to her funeral. It was horrifying. It changed everything. My own battle with mental illness got even more intense after loosing her.
B and I met in grade 4. We clicked right away, and became part of a group of 4. J&J&B&K. We were inseparable. Well, until one J moved away and the other one killed herself. Desperate times sealed us as friends for life. She was one on the only ones I could talk to about my own problems, and I was her closest confident for years. Her mother practically adopted me, and I could come over anytime, day or night, to talk, eat, or sleep. Whatever I needed. I always thought B had it made. Her parents were broken up, she had free reins. Compared to the trouble her other siblings got into, she was an angel, so could do anything she wanted. As university students, she slept over at my parents house one Easter weekend. And participated in her first Easter Egg hunt. She showed me that my family was not just the horrible beasts that I had thought they were. I had taken so much for granted. B has had much loss. Her mother died in a car crash, her brother killed himself. She hasn’t had an easy run of it. And she has always been there for me. And me for her. We are still very close, and I’m blessed to call her a friend.
As for crazy things. Gosh. I don’t know. We had a lot of extra curricular activities back then. Got into a lot of trouble apart, actually. We ran in separate circles. Good thing too. Not sure the world could have handled us together.
So much tragedy. I have been blessed to not lose anyone I have been close to. (so far)
I remember losing a school mate when I was around 9. I had been attending the school for “special” kids. (it was the late 70′s, before integration).
One of the older kids had MD and he died in the middle of the summer. We had hung out some, and being older than me, I looked up to him. But we weren’t best friends or anything.
I was playing in the driveway when the school’s social worker called to tell me he had died. He was the first person I ever knew that had died. And I honestly didn’t know what to say or do. I didn’t even know how to feel.
To be honest, I’m still not sure.