The Raft

This Memory Monday is dedicated my friend, Debbie.

I can see Deb & I sitting at a local watering hole with cold drinks, lightly buzzed, bumming cigarettes from young rednecks when we're about 75.

This was still early in the evening!

If we sell 131 and leave The Heights, Debbie will the #1 thing I will miss.  

She lives in my backyard, our boys are days apart and our friendship lives beyond play dates and pedicures.  

It spills into our home life, our deep conversations, our deeper secrets and our undying affection and adoration for each other.

Our husbands like each other, and not just in the "our wives are friends so we tolerate each other" sort of way that husbands so often handle those forced social situations.

Deb took this pic of Jay, myself and her hubby, Dave as we were Trick or Treating last year.

 I have lots of "friends" in town, but they are "playdate friends".  We can talk for hours, have everything in common but no real loyalty or bond - when our kids move on, so will we.  With Debbie & I, it's like a bonus that our kids play so well.  Our friendship comes first.

Last summer, one of many nights that our husbands didn't bother to wait up!

Debbie's on my mind a lot lately because she's pregnant, due at the end of this month and it has not been an easy time.  She's sick, she's tired, she's stressed and worried and everything else that we've all felt as we experienced Baby #2.  But Debbie has felt it more.  And while I have done everything I can (I think, I hope, I'm pretty sure) to be her friend through what has been a very difficult time, I am anxious for her pregnancy to be over and for her to get back to being herself.

Pregnancy can wreck you as a woman before becoming a mother builds you back up to a million times more than you ever thought you could be.

So, here's to my friend.

Here's to one of the best mamas on the planet - whether she realizes it every day or not.

Here's to one woman without whom I would be lost in my every-day.

I cannot wait to see You see what a wonderful woman, mother and friend you are, Again.

I love you.