A Good Friend Not Forgotten

It's fascinating how some memories stick like they happened just a couple years ago. My best friend in high school was named Michelle. We called each other Shell & Mel. The two of us did everything together.

Michelle was an only child; her home had a much different feel than did mine. Hers felt like the child was a third adult living in the house. It was a nice place to hang out, very calm and quiet.

Her family was fun to be around. The three of them bonded through a unique sense of humor. They made each other giggle a lot, and they included me in their private family jokes. Her parents talked with me and asked me questions like they were genuinely interested. I never felt in any way unwelcome. 

I remember Michelle's bedroom where she and I shared our innermost thoughts. It was always clean and organized, her bed made just so with fancy linens, little ballerinas peppered throughout the room, every item in its place. My bedroom, on the other hand, looked like a bomb had recently gone off, at all times. I actually don't have a single memory of her hanging out in my bedroom. I wonder if she did and I've just forgotten?

Every summer when Shell and her parents went on vacation to Myrtle Beach, she was allowed to invite one friend along for the week. I was the friend she chose to accompany her year after year. I remember the first time she invited me. No one had ever invited me to something that seemed so extravagant.

They only asked that I bring money to contribute toward my dinners each evening. We ate breakfast and lunch in our hotel room but went out for fine dining each evening. They went out for food like I had never eaten before . . . all the fresh seafood and the scratch-made hush puppies!

Except for mealtimes, Michelle and I were left to entertain ourselves. Her parents even allowed us to wander off on our own in the evenings. She and I roamed along the beach as far as we could walk, making a mental note of which hotel was ours. We usually ran into some other kids our age and met up with them throughout the week. All in all, they were trips unlike anything I’d been on. 

I used to have a collection of good photos of us from those trips to South Carolina. Unfortunately I only own two now. The one above shows us pigging out. Those trips were a barrage of snacks. What was this world where I could eat name-brand snacks any time I wanted?! The other is a picture she took of me when we were hanging out at the hotel pool one evening.

Michelle and I remained close throughout high school. When we were seniors, we double-dated to the prom. Each of us wore a custom-made gown, mine sewn by my mother and hers by a seamstress she'd hired. We chose the same pattern; mine was made using bright green satin fabric and hers bright red.

We kept in touch after college. She was the guest book attendant at my wedding. When I lived far away and flew home to visit my family, I always stopped by with my firstborn daughter to visit Michelle and her parents. Michelle wasn’t too comfortable around little kids; I don’t think growing up she had been around many. Her parents, though, seemed fascinated to see me with a little child all my own. 

Michelle and I lost touch between our twenties and forties. Then one day out of the blue, when we were were forty-five, I got word that she had died unexpectedly. I remember looking through the photos of us together. I thought her parents should have them. They likely were images her parents had never seen, so I mailed them to Pennsylvania. I also wanted to thank them for welcoming me into the fold so completely. Later I read in her obituary that she "loved traveling with her family." I'm glad I was once a very small part of that love.

How do you reminisce about an entire era of which the one person you shared everything is no longer around? A significant part of my young life was left for only me to remember. All the comments we used to make to each other. How we were attached at the hip.

By the time of her passing, Michelle had had one child of her own; I never had the pleasure of meeting him. Perhaps his grandparents showed him the photos I mailed and shared some fond childhood memories of his mother and her best friend when we were young, spirited, and carefree.

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