Friends Part two

Again I was blessed to have a friend like Denise during those years which can be so tough on some young people. Those years of first love and despair, experimenting with clothes, makeup and hairdos. It was lucky we had different taste in guys and never fancied the same bloke! Quite the opposite really. We knew if we really liked a guy if we still fancied him after the other had finished pulling him to pieces (or "rubbishing him" as we used to say). I still feel it's rather amazing that I really like Barry, the man she married, and that she liked Bryon. Although to be honest, Bryon disliked her intensely and thought that our attachment to each other was "unhealthy".

These three friends still form the core of my friends. They are there at the centre. I don't know many people who have been lucky enough to maintain such strong links with the friends of their youth, and I give thanks that I have been.

Many other friends have come and gone and influenced my life in some way since then. A few have come in and stayed. One of these is the lady your mum calls Aunty Bev (she's actually your grandad's second cousin). We became friends when Bryon and I first came to New Zealand, when I had three young children and was miles from the familiar surroundings of my home. She had four young children and her kids and mine grew up in an intertwined family, especially after her husband was killed in a tractor accident when my fourth child, Justine was 6 weeks old. In the years following Neal's death I was Bev's support but there have been many times since that she has been my support. It seems to me that we met at a time when I needed a friend, cemented our relationship in a time that she needed a friend and consequently have been there for each other ever since.

I don't think you ever realize when you are young how much a friend can love you, or how much you love a friend. At least I never did. Friendship was something I took for granted. It wasn't until your Aunty Justine was eleven that I realized how wrong I had been to take Bev's love and friendship for granted. I just knew she would always be there for me if I needed her and knew she knew the same was true in reverse. But then Justine had an accident when she fell off a horse while she was staying with your grandad and I was visiting my family in Australia and in her misery she rang her Aunty Bev. It takes at least six hours non stop driving to get from Aunty Bev's house to Wellsford where your grandad was living at the time but Aunty Bev jumped straight in her car and drove up north, collected Justine and headed back to Taranaki, stopping only in Tuakau to see your mum and tell her she was taking Justine home to her place. It was school holiday time (Aunty Bev was a high school teacher) and the next couple of weeks of Bev's holiday was spent taking Justine to the doctor twice a day to start with, then every day to have her dressings changed.

I have to veer off the track here for a bit. It is one of my beliefs that we attract the experiences we need in this life, the experiences we need to learn and grow. And that we usually have "accidents" when we our inner minds, our subconscious, is dealing with something. At the time we often don't realize that this is happening, we think we are fine, it's only later when we look back that we understand that we were dwelling on something within ourselves at that time.

So I thought it was a strange quirk of fate when I dropped the electric jug and burnt my legs a couple of days after I got back from Australia and Bev had returned Justine to me. Justine and I both had to visit the doctor daily for weeks after that. I felt I was a bad mother because my child had been injured while I was on holiday, I felt a failure because my marriage had broken down and my younger children were growing up with parents who didn't love or respect each other. And, although my legs hurt, they were nowhere near as badly damaged as Justine's were. And then I would think of what Bev had done for me, for my child, and felt unworthy of such a friend. At night in bed I would think how could I ever re-pay her. It was ages before I came to accept that friends don't have to re-pay each other, that friendship is not something you trade, it's so special because it just IS.

It also seems to me that God, or your guardian angel, or whoever or whatever it is you believe is the power that organises things in this world, sends people along to help you when you need it. Just a quick example. When I was going through a particularly rough time just before your grandad and I lost the farm and our marriage was falling apart, I was having a really hard day at work. One of the managers (Warren Cook) where I worked was a very cheerful, jovial type, always tormenting and teasing and I usually appreciated his good humour. But on this day he was hassling me for something that I didn't have the time to do for him and as I sat at my desk and he stood there half behind me rabbiting on, I put a hand to my forehead to block him off and said, "Not today, Cook." I thought he had gone away but the next minute I felt a hand on my shoulder and a gentle squeeze. I didn't even look up from what I was doing, just said, "Piss off, Cook." But as soon as he was out the door I had to rush off to the toilet and cry my eyes out. It was the only time during that difficult period that I cried. I dared not, was scared that if I let a chink appear in my armour I would crack and never stop. But the human contact, just a hand on my shoulder, that unspoken support nearly undid me. I don't think at that time he had the slightest idea what my troubles were but he reached out to me and touched my heart. Right then when I felt so alone, I knew I had a friend. Cook, his wife, Irene and I became great mates and it was a friendship that puzzled many work colleagues and it started with a hand on a shoulder when I needed it.

I had two other "accidents" in the year that followed my separation from your grandad. The second was just a few days before Christmas when Justine and I were putting up the Christmas tree. We had the tree positioned where we wanted it and Justine wanted an angel she had made to sit right at the very top. To reach up high enough, I had to put a chair on my desk and as I reached over to put the angel in place, I put too much weight on one corner of the chair and the leg broke and down I came, cracking my ribs against the desk as I fell. Instead of an angel on top of the tree we had a monster under the tree. I was hurt and angry, and shouted at Justine to get this bloody thing off me. But, Michael, do you see, I was hurt and angry inside too. The hurt of those broken ribs did not ache near as much as I did with the thought of my first Christmas without Bryon. How was it going to be a happy Christmas for my children?

I don't know if that was a happy Christmas but it was one that started some healing for me. Your Mum and Dad had only been married a month and it must have been hard for your Dad coming into family he thought was a family, then being told when they got back from their honeymoon that I was leaving. That Christmas Day we did the usual things in a quiet, subdued fashion. After dinner that night we played a board game, then Chris suggested Charades which was a lot of fun. I laughed so much my ribs hurt very badly. Then we sat quietly around the dining room table and the kids and I talked, honestly and openly about my separation. And they gave me the most wonderful gifts I have ever received at Christmas or any other time - the gifts of acceptance and understanding from my children. (It was exactly ten years before I experienced a Christmas to equal that one, and that was the Christmas Eve that Danny and Heather told us they were adopting twin baby girls. And that became an especially joyous Christmas, with the greatest gift of love - the gift of life.

I got off the track there a bit. Just like how you never know how a friendship will develop, I never know where my thoughts will lead me.

Friends, Part one

Today I had lunch and a long catch up with my friend, Bev who is visiting her two children who live not far from me. Driving home I've been reflecting on the power of our friendship - and upon friends generally.

Then I remembered that I had something I'd written a few years ago. I had a collection of short stories I called "Letter to Michael". Michael is my only grandson and when he was about twelve I put these stories together for him. This one is "Friends". It's probably a bit long so I will break it into two parts.

Part one
Sometimes people come into your life and you never know if they are going to be someone you remember in years to come or someone who will simply disappear again, make no impression, be forgotten in a few months or years.

But sometimes looking back it is like everyone was meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson, or to help you figure out who you are or who you want to become.

You never know who these people may be and when you first lock eyes with them, you do not know at that very moment how they will affect your life.

The people you meet affect your life, and the success and downfalls you experience, help to create who you are and who you become. And we must never forget that we affect others’ lives too.

If a friend loves you, they are teaching you to love and how to open your heart and eyes to things.

Now, Michael, all that is easy to say. But life is not always that simple. As you go through life people come and go. Sometimes they walk along the same path as you for a while, they leave footprints beside yours, and then your paths differ and your footprints are left along different paths. Others you may never lose touch with, their footprints may be in a different place, but their impression stays with you.

Let me tell you about some of my special friends. Firstly there are the three girls who I first met in First Grade at school - Denise, Marie and Tricia. Marie and Tricia lived close to me so we walked the mile home from school together every day for eight years. We knew and loved each others Mums and Dads and brothers and sisters (except Marie didn't have a sister). Goodness knows what we always found to talk about but often when we got to the place where Tricia went down her street we would sit on the footpath and chat some more and then Marie and I would do the same when we got to the place where Marie took a short cut through to her home. Then I would be in trouble when I got home late because my mother was worried (although I always thought she was mad at me because there were jobs to be done).

I can still remember the day when we were about 10 when Marie and I had an argument although I can't remember what it was about. We walked all the way home on different sides of the road and Tricia walked behind me on the side we usually walked, obviously knowing it wasn't her argument but not wanting to take sides. I guess Marie got mad at me and not vice versa as she was the one who crossed the road to walk on the other side. But when we got to the spot where we parted each day we sat down together and sorted it out. A few years ago when I had visited Marie on one of my trips home to Brisbane, her youngest daughter came home crying because she had had an argument with her friend, and was vowing never to speak to her again. As we were saying goodbye we hugged and Marie said, "My, dear, dear friend. In all those years only once have we had cross words. What did we argue about that day? We could never fall out for more than 10 minutes, could we?"

How blessed I have been to have been sent a friend such as Marie. We were very different children and grew into very different adults but we formed an accepting friendship, we accepted each others differences but loved each other all the same and that has been a very important lesson in life to me. Friends such as this are the ones I say "leave footprints in your heart".

When it came time for us to go off to high school, Marie and Tricia went to the same private school as Denise, another girl who had been in our class at school, and I went to another which wasn't as expensive, as my family had more children and did not have as much money as the others. Denise was a girl I was friends with at school but lived so far from us we rarely saw each other outside school. Once we started high school I rarely saw her at all except at church occasionally. But Marie and Tricia and I stayed firm friends.

In those days most kids left school at what is now Year 11. We had sat State exams at the finish of primary school (every child in Queensland sat these exams) and your marks here determined whether you would do academic subjects at high school (only about 10% got a high enough mark to do those) or be educated to earn a living. Like most girls my age I learnt English, Maths I and II (Maths II was algebra and stuff), Geography, Latin, shorthand and typing. Much to my surprise and I think everyone else's shock, I earned five As and two Bs in the state exams we sat at the end of Year 11.

With marks like that I quickly found a job in a government department in the city and became a working girl, or, as the snobbish lady who lived next door said (and fell out with my mother forever), a two-a-penny typist. Dear Mum who was so placid and easy going - I had never seen her so upset and indignant.

Marie also worked for a government department in the city as a typist, whereas Tricia who wasn't very good at school but was artistic, beautiful and had a lovely nature, was employed as a receptionist by the local doctor. But Tricia not working in the city didn't mean we lost track of her, she caught the same train to work as Marie and I did although she only rode from our railway station to the next one at Banyo, and could have caught a later train but came on our train so we could have that time together each morning. We hadn't been in the working world for long when Denise started getting on the train at Banyo and taking the seat Tricia had just vacated and in this way Denise came back into my circle of friends. I can't remember how quickly it happened but Denise and I enjoyed doing the same things whereas Marie's interests differed, and it wasn't long before Denise and I were inseparable, and she became my closest friend throughout our late teen years.

Friends

I wrote the following about my lifelong friends shortly after I turned 50. Those friendships have been very much in my mind lately and I think may have had something to do with yesterday worry attack (no, it wasn't a panic attach!) about my failing memory.

History tells us that 1945 was a momentous year in world events, but there was special reasons for rejoicing in the Brisbane suburb of Nudgee. Frank and Kath Conway welcomed a baby girl, Marie after two sons; Mick and Margaret Tanner already had a boy and a girl, so were happy with the birth of beautiful Tricia. Not far away at Laidley in the Lockyer Valley two prominent families were also rejoicing in my birth, the first child born to Andy and Lilly Ward. When I was five our family moved to Nudgee and the three little girls who lived in adjoining streets became firm friends. We were in the same class at St Pius’ Convent and walked to and from school together, along with another Nudgee girl, Pat Fleming.

By the time we were in our last year at primary school we had formed what the parish priest most disapprovingly called a “clique” and despite the very public condemnation (from the pulpit, in front of the whole school) about the evils of cliques, how their exclusion of other little boys and girls amounted to meanness and cruelty, the friendship grew stronger. Each was a member of the other’s extended family, familiar with each others parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents.

As we grew older our interests varied but our friendship remained. I went to swimming training with a young man who, upon introduction to my friend, Tricia, fell in love and later married her. Marie and I played tennis, squash and badminton together. With Tricia in love (and married from an early age, happily to this day I might add) and Marie being of a more conservative nature, I became firm friends with another girl who had been in our class at school but who lived on the other side of the hill in Banyo, Denise Smollen. Denise and I surfed and partied together. As we met and were courted by young men we each cast aspersions on the other’s choice, but luckily we had different taste and never competed for affections.

I was the first to leave the fold, heading out west to Richmond at 19 to work in a pub. Shortly afterwards Denise went in search the bright lights of Sydney, but our trips home to Brisbane coincided with holidays on the Gold Coast. I then went to Proserpine in North Queensland where I lost my heart to a young Kiwi cane cutter and six months later was married and moved to Mt Isa. A year later Marie married Les who had been her constant companion for years but it was quite a few more years before Denise met Barry and finally also “settled down” in Sydney, returning to Brisbane about five years later.

In late 1973 I moved to farming life in NZ but we friends always stayed in touch and every holiday home I spent time with my friends.

Now each is proud of (and known and loved by) each others families - Marie and Les, 5; Bryon and me 4; Tricia and Rob, 3; Denise and Barry, 2. And now, of course, we are all grandparents.

The last time we were all together had been Marie’s wedding and it took the reaching of 50 to bring us all together again at the same time. I was always the one who was missing, so it was fitting that the occasion was my and Marie’s birthdays which are three weeks apart. To help
celebrate the occasion we were joined by Joyce, who had worked with Denise in her first job and become part of the friendship, and her husband Col.

What a night of nostalgia! How many memories were revisited, toasts drunk? How much alcohol was drunk for that matter! It was a hot February night but Denise’s front verandah overlooking the peaceful bush and the Glasshouse Mountains was the perfect, relaxed setting. The pool was visited many times.

Next morning instead of early morning showers it was into the pool again, now sober, to laugh at lost youth (and young bodies) and to rejoice in being together again. And to look forward to the next 45 years of friendship.

Now here we are damn near 15 years later and I feel as if one of those bonds is slipping from me. Denise, my best mate through my teenage years, the one I partied with, my bridesmaid, the most confident (read outspoken) and self assured of my mates, has Alzheimer's Disease.

I spoke to her and her husband Barry on the phone last week, it was Denise’s 65th birthday. For a few minutes I thought I may have over-reacted to the reports I’d had from Marie. Denise sounded exactly the same! But went off track as she was telling me I should come home more often, not to worry about clothes, she had plenty she could give me although she has lost a lot of weight due to her medication for a “condition” she has caught from somewhere, didn’t know where but it had caught her. She then tried to explain what this condition was and got very confused, then upset and insisted on handing the phone back to Barry.

My chat went back and forth between Barry and Denise with Barry helping her out with words but then degenerated quickly with Denise growing more and more angry and aggressive, and Barry finally saying he would have to go and calm her down, that what I’d just witnessed was a daily event. But the dear man wanted me to know she wasn’t angry with me, she was pissed off with him because of a word he’d used (but he wasn’t too sure which one it was).

As I write this I am becoming upset again. My mate as I have known her for nearly 60 years has gone. My heart is breaking for Barry and their beautiful boys.