WHO KNOWS YOU BETTER THAN ME?

It started out as a funny thing. I mean, it really was a funny thing because we were laughing, uproariously laughing. It wasn’t a drunk laughing because I’ve been a drunk laughing one time and that wasn’t it. The remark, or maybe it was a story, I can’t remember right now, but something made us laugh because it tickled our joint sense of humor to the point neither of us could control our sense of decorum and we both let go with loud hoots and snorts of laughter. It was almost a cleansing kind of reaction in that it was a knowing and a realization at the same time. How can something be right in front of you, or right inside of you as this was, and not be recognized?

I know this might be confusing so let me fill in the details for you. Becky and I have been friends since we were four years old and here we are, 70 years of physical antiquity (and 25 years of desired youth), yet we still think alike. She is still fettered to the old haunts of our youth in California and I have adventured around the country and ended up in Virginia.

Becky’s family had lived in the rural area surrounding Red Bluff for years, but my family had moved from Oregon to Northern California just after my baby sister was born. Since we were little more than toddlers ourselves when we initially met, it was unlikely that environment had a specific influence on the two of us. I take that back, we were raised in the same church so that was a type of influential setting that affected us together—in the same way in Sunday School class—and separately in our homes. One Sunday, without pressure from either Becky or I, her mom asked if I would like to go home with them after church. I was so flattered, but I think it was really a matter of logistics: a friend would help babysit the older child while the mom attended to the baby.  My first thought then was that I wouldn’t have to take my afternoon nap. In perspective, now I would be upset if someone kept me from my daily nap. Anyway, that was the beginning of spending Sunday afternoons together, splitting the time between Becky’s house and mine. Maybe there was a “mind meld” that occurred one Sunday during our playtime but it seems unlikely. She’s still much smarter than me.

I never remember a time that we had an argument over a difference of opinion. If she suggested we do an activity or go somewhere, I was in full agreement. It was impressive to me that she knew what I wanted to do. When a creative thought came to me, she knew exactly what I was talking about and would tweak it just a little to make the fun more thrilling. We were quite a fun pair! I miss that now.

There was a family in the church who had some kids our age who invited the youth group to their home to enjoy the new swimming pool they had just put in. The boys, of course, were great at landing their ‘belly flops’ or ‘cannonballs’ directly in front of us. Even some of the girls got in on splashing the water in other’s faces or dunking, but not Becky and me. We had an understanding—water up the nose was not good for the sinuses—and we would take ourselves off to the poolside chairs away from the offending participants. As we got older, our misery from congestion of sinuses and allergy-causing pollens, at the same time of the year, was a rare bond. We could talk the language of the most sophisticated sinus sufferer and knew all the remedies that commercials would espouse. Understanding the mumbling coming from a blocked nasal cavity is a skill that should be cited on a resume.

We lived our high school years without a cell phone. I know! You can’t believe it but it’s true. We just spent more time together or on our landlines. Our parents could never make or receive phone calls after 7:00 p.m. because it was glued to our ears. Really! Just because we had spent all day together didn’t mean we didn’t have things to say that night.

We had lots of classes together which meant we could help each other with homework. One class in our senior year that was a real hoot was Spanish. Becky was already semi-(high school) proficient in French but I had to get a year of language to apply to the college I wanted to go to; so she offered to take it with me. The foreign languages I could understand were shorthand and typing, because my tongue wouldn’t get in the way with those. Anyway, poor Mrs. Robles had her hands full with us! She liked us and knew we were intelligent enough to learn but we laughed way too much and disrupted her teaching. The class was finished with passing grades but my in-class grade wasn’t so good. Gratefully, Mrs. Robles didn’t mark me down too much and the grade was sufficient for my transcript.

You ask, “Did you finish each other’s sentences?” or “Did you know where the other one was when you weren’t together?” Those are too easy and not really about us. It’s not like we were twins or something! There were lots of things about Becky and I that were different: Becky was an Editor on the yearbook—which was a little heady for me—I spent my extracurricular time creating, learning and leading cheers.

The things that were the same about us were our hearts and our values and our outlook and…our sense of humor. We still have those and I could tell you how she reacts to hurts and failures and joys and surprises. I could extol that she is a tower of strength in the face of—everything and anything. I can still hear her laugh although now we mostly “talk” by text. I know the pain she suffers with a chronically-ill husband and she knows my struggles through cancer to survival.

We can still talk for hours when we finally get together, and it all started with “a funny thing,” that I still can’t remember.