Happy Birthday, Nadine'

She would have been 74 years old today. She was my first friend in Austin Joint School. She was taken from us way too soon. She was an amazing, unique person and I miss her.

It's hard to be the new person in a new school. My mom had married my (step)-dad in July. My whole life changed that day. We moved to a new home in a new town. I went from being an only child to having a younger brother and sister.

I was a skinny, sickly, frightened little girl. I had met some kids in my neighborhood, but they were all older or younger than me. I needed a friend at school.

That first day in the school yard at lunch recess was terrifying. And then, she approached me. She was a little thing, much shorter than me. She told me her name. She already knew mine as I'd been introduced that morning as the new girl. We were friends immediately.

From that day on, we shared so much. We shared apartments, heartaches, joys, marriages, children until that February morning when the phone rang at 6 AM. A silent killer called aneurysm had called on her.

I drove to Buffalo praying all the way. We gathered in the waiting room outside Intensive Care. We cried together, we prayed together, and then we stood by her bedside as she breathed her last.

What a privilege that I was allowed to be with her as she left this life. What a privilege that I had been allowed to be her friend through most of her life.

Happy Birthday, dear friend.