Friends

At our reunion this past week this formerly tiny girl Trish told a story about being a little kid in school when the teacher made everyone go home and draw a picture of what their daddies did for work. “I figured I had it knocked," she said. "My daddy ran a funeral home AND he was dead! So I made a picture of this little guy standing next to a coffin and I was so proud. But then I got to school and the teacher wouldn't hang it.”When she told her mother, her mom got mad in exactly the right way. “She said  the teacher never should have asked about people's daddies. The teacher should have said, "Draw a picture about the work that someone in your family does.”This must have come up as we talked about the camp's  big Visiting Day Father-Daughter Softball Game, which made me cringe every time because I didn't have a father anymore than Trish did. But Trish was younger, this tiny darling child made much of by the visiting dads even though her tiger of a mom was right there acting as the camp nurse. My mom was there too, for all that; she and my aunt ran the camp.  But I was older than Trish and so felt mostly shame the way older kids will. In fact when we went to see the old place Wednesday my cousin Sheila recalled the time when we were around 12 and the two of us stole away to the lake, where I cried about my fatherless state.I had forgotten all about this until it was recalled it to me by Sheil, who even today is like my second sister and that is why people should stay close and make a family of their friends: Because in this life daddies are by no means guaranteed, no, nor husbands either. So just  keep making friends, for your friends you will always have with you.

Sheila and I, friends even then