A Journey Through Friendship
A Journey Through Friendship
Years ago there was a popular verse. I don't remember who wrote it. All I remember is the final line. "God knew from the start we were sisters by heart." That's how it was with Bonnie, Paula and I from the moment we met.
I was new to town when I volunteered to teach P.S.R within my parish and was assigned to teach first grade with another woman, Bonnie. We quickly became friends. I was pregnant with my youngest son, then. The second year we taught together, Paula enrolled her oldest daughter in the first grade classes. Paula was Bonnie's sister-in-law and she began to babysit not only with my infant son but her own toddler daughter as well as Bonnie's toddler son while Bonnie and I taught first grade together.
We taught together three years before I began to teach 3rd and 4th grade alone. The following year Bonnie moved to another parish and I took on the job of coordinating the elementary P.S.R. program as well as teaching 7th/8th grade. I coerced Paula into teaching 3rd and 4th grade.
Through the 1980's and into the 90's while our children grew from babies to teenagers, there were shopping trips, impromptu meetings and lunches with Bonnie and Paula. We attended several workshops with fellow teachers.
Sadly, Bonnie died very quickly of a brain tumor...just a few weeks after Paula gave birth to her now twenty year old son. After Bonnie's funeral Paula squeezed my hand as she said, "You're my only best friend now."
I flippantly replied, "Ahh, Bonnie's just managed to get herself a loftier position." That caused Paula to smile but I never told Paula how deeply her words touched me. You see, I often felt a twinge of envy at the closeness my two friends shared. Today, I marvel at the speed they drew me into their exclusive cocoon and never let go „Ÿmuch like three peas in a pod.
Paula had grown up on the farm neighboring my husband's family farm so he treated Paula the same as he did his two sisters. We crop-farm property near Paula's home and her husband spent a lot of his spare time helping my husband farm. Many were the nights Paula and I waited while my Dennis and her Ted plowed the fields. Many were the evenings the four of us sat in the yard or in her kitchen talking late into the night. Ted and Paula often came to our rescue when something broke, or was lost, or we needed to use their well water or electricity or shed. Our families are fond of telling the tale about one bottle of wine consumed under a star filled sky. They can have their fun. Paula and I shared wine more times than that. We just learned to eat something before we drank alcohol.
We continued to teach P.S.R. and to attend workshops while we both sought Caticatical status. Unofficially, we coordinated the P.S.R. program together. When I could not be present; Paula made a point to be. When she was absent, I taught her classes with mine. Paula opened the school before classes; I locked the doors before I left. Once Paula got really ticked at someone who dared to rebuke my perpetual lateness. Paula fondly told people, "Mary's clock just runs a few minutes later than everyone else's."
Then one day we realized we had been teaching P.S.R together for nineteen years. It was actually my 24th year of teaching as I had also worked as a T.A. in parish schools before my sons were born. I would continue to teach a total of 25 years but Paula would not teach another year. She was diagnosed with cancer that spring.
I have other friends, teaching friends, writing friends. Dennis and I share a number of friendships through our farming operation. I am equally close to his sisters and my own sister. However, none of those relationships include the kinship I shared with Paula. Given the differences in our personalities it seems odd that we could be friends at all. Paula was an extrovert. She thrived on person to person contact while I tend to prefer my solitude. I've been a writer and a voracious reader all of my life. Paula rarely read anything and she was totally baffled by the ‘writing bug' that controls me. Yet, she accompanied me to my very first book signing when Dino, Godzilla and the Pigs was published in 1993. I was given free parking in a local parking garage „Ÿtwo blocks from the bookstore we walked to „Ÿin the rain. I entered my first book signing resembling a drowned rat, a giggling drowned rat with a companion who was more overwhelmed by the surroundings than I.
Teaching without ‘my partner' erased much of the joy in the task. I could not overcome the feeling I was ‘missing something'. So at the end of that 25th year growing problems with rheumatoid arthritis gave me a convenient excuse to retire from teaching altogether.
Throughout the next five years Paula never enjoyed one moment ‘cancer free'. She continually faced chemotherapy or surgery from her colon to her liver to her lungs. Still, she kept her forty hour a week employment and her sunny attitude. Her faith grew stronger by the day. She was a shining beacon to anyone and everyone she encountered.
But there was a side of Paula others did not see. She let her guard down when we attempted to face her predicament as realists. We often wondered why, it seems, the more faith a person has the harder their lives appear to be. Eventually we drew the conclusion that the closer one is to God the harder the devil has to work to get to them. So the devil keeps throwing awful things on people, hoping they will blame God and turn from Him. But the devil is wrong. When a person has faith as strong as Paula's, the more trouble one faces the closer you rely on God to be your guide; to send others you can lean on. I am glad God chose me to be one of those to support Paula; one of few to help her gather her pieces so she could put that ‘happy face' back on before the rest of the world.
Paula always wanted to see the ocean so she and Ted took a second honeymoon trip around Florida. She saw both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico and returned home seeming more accepting of her fate. She told me, "No one knows how much time they have. I'm going to make the best of whatever time I have left."
There were other outings, trips, family vacations and though I sensed a growing sadness within my friend I also sensed a growing calmness. She remained steadfastly determined not to let the cancer conquer her mind or her heart.
I accompanied her to several chemo sessions. We went shopping after doctor appointments and out to lunch when we could. And, bless her, she sent food down to the field for Dennis and I when we worked late harvesting our crops.
Far too soon the day came when Paula was told "all alternative options were exhausted". We spent one more long afternoon together. We talked till our jaws ached. We laughed until we cried. Seeing her physical fatigue, I kept my fears to myself.
Two months before Paula died my youngest son who lived away came home for the weekend unexpectedly and we attended Mass together. When Paula saw him sitting in the pew, I swear, she squealed (in church!) and all but skipped to sit beside him and talked to him throughout Mass.
Her first words of our last long telephone conversation were, "How're my boys?" My heart ached because she was living this hell but could still think of my sons.
I phoned Paula after that but our conversations were short and left feelings of emptiness. In her last days Ted discouraged me from volunteering to sit with her. I suspect he believed it would be too difficult for either of us to face grim reality. Her family asked me to accompany their vigil the night she died but, by then, I realized Ted was right. I was not strong enough to watch my dear friend suffer through her last moments on earth. So I cried and held a lonely prayer vigil.
Two years have passed since Paula's death but I still hear her laughter. She still shares my dilemmas, if only in my mind. Paula was employed at the county court house for nearly twenty years. The line of mourners at her wake spanned the length of the city block for hours. Her coworkers still talk of the costumes she wore every Halloween and how she could brighten up the most dismal day. Paula's legacy has been the inspiration she instilled in those she encountered throughout her life. She taught us how to fight; to be brave and strong even when we loose.
Paula has found peace but I prefer to think she has gone to visit Bonnie. I plan to see my ‘sisters by heart' again one of these days...and I fully expect them to greet me with, "It's about time you got here!" I will use a lot of detail to tell them what transpired during the years they sat on their lofty thrones while I was...well ‘late' is better than ‘not at all'.