Happy 50th Birthday

Yesterday was my friends 50th birthday, i cannot believe it, we have been friends for 37 years............................. .. i can remember the first time we met like it was yesterday, we met the first year at high school it was initiation day and we had to do all weird things like put one of our shoes in a big pile and then try to find it, we had to carry a pet in a match box, we had to wear our hats the wrong way round, we survived the day together and have been friends ever since, we were always the "smartest" kids in school i suppose today we would have been in the "nerd" group, it was either her or I who were top in the class in every subject, i remember she was the first one to get a TV and we would rush to her house in the afternoon sometimes so that i could watch the repeat, over the years as our own lives became complicated by husbands, children and careers, we have had times when communications were reduced to a few times a year but we never lost touch with one another....... and is that not what a true friend is, to be there when they need you, to just be there when the other is in trouble................

Now we speak to one another daily, we have over the past 4 or 5 years grown closer than ever before, i must admit we have sometimes, on the "odd" occasion, no longer been the goody two shoes from school, we have on occasion been very creative, but that is another story, which i doubt i will ever tell, if we have not heard from one another by lunch time we start getting withdrawal systems, it is almost like we compliment one another, like Jeckel and Hyde ..... like Laurel and Hardy ..... like Abbot and Costello ........... like night and day ........ like sunrise and sunset, we are completed different from one another and yet just the same .............we don't need to explain we just know what kind of day the other is having by the word HELLO .............. and that says it all. We have similar outlooks on life we have similar moral values and more that that we serve the same Lord. ................. what more could you ask for in a friend ................ The bible says better to have a good friend when you fall than to be alone...............

I always rag her at this time of the year, because she is now older than me by a whole 45 days, but she is now 50 a quarter of a century she is REALLY old and i am only 49 and 320 days which now feels like much younger that her.

Her daughter gave her a surprise birthday party on Sunday and for me it was like going to one of my own family functions, catching up with her brothers, the sister and brother in laws, the nieces and the nephews and the great nieces, her son and daughter and their "better" halves what an amazing time it was.

There is nothing like a get together of people who know one another well, there are no airs and graces, there is no need to be someone else, you can just be you.......... warts and all.

When i was 16 i had a major crush on my friend's brother, but he seemed to be so much older, married with children, and now it is like we are the same age, as you grow older the age gap just seems to disappear.

Much fun was had by all, as usual you had the "You should have , i could have , why didn't you tribe there .......... but it always amazes me how the people with the biggest mouths do the least work. I was so proud of what her daughter did, everything was done with love no everything was done with LOVE and isn't that what family is all about.................

HAPPY BIRTHDAY my special friend, may you have many more, and i hope that i NEVER catch up with you................... well at least not for another 45 days anyway ......................................