These women. We met randomly. Our kids all went to Boring Grade School. Not all in the same class, but all in the same school. We volunteered. We were room mothers.  We made cupcakes and planned crazy games for holiday parties. We did fundraisers, like spaghetti feeds, we built a fitness track and helped in classrooms, doing whatever the teachers asked us to help out with. We watched our kids compete in sports, sing, play their instrument in the school band and whatever else it was our kids were doing. We decorated for graduations. We did a carnival. Sometimes we would go out for lunch after an event, pretty soon, the event was going out to lunch, nothing to do with school. We enjoyed each other’s company. We were all so different, different backgrounds, different incomes, different faiths, yet the dearest thing to each of us was our kids and that was what bonded us. There were no judgements, no unasked for advice, just acceptance and encouragement in whatever it was we each were dealing with. I never felt like I had to compete with any of them.   I don’t know how I would have made it through my kids grade school years without these women. For a while, it seemed that every time I entered those school doors, a teacher or the principal would have to have a little ‘talk’ with me about something my kids had done…or not done. So one day, one of girls met me at the door and handed me a set of Groucho Marx glasses to use as a disguise.   There is a 12 year difference from the youngest to the oldest of us. The oldest has the youngest kids, the youngest has the oldest kids. Each year as we dropped our kids off for the first day of school, we would gather at the local eating place and celebrate the start of a new school year. We tried to lose weight together and gained it back together. We managed to do a book read together. Once. We went on trips together, endured bad haircuts and gray hairs.We have had so many laughs and cried a few tears. Got each other through some surgeries. Mourned the loss of a husband and a few parents. We saw each other through our kids weddings and celebrated births of our grandkids. As life went on though, it got harder to find a day that would work for a get together, some moved, some went back to work, others were traveling. Little by little the get togethers dwindled down to not at all. Sometimes we would talk on the phone, sometimes one or two were able to meet up or we would bump into somebody at the store. Well, today we all met up again! It has been about 4 or 5 years since the last time we were together. I had a little brunch and EVERYONE made it! Instantly it was like old times. It is amazing how that can happen, just picking up and going on, filling in the missing years, catching up. So much has happened, so much has changed, but still nothing has changed about our friendship. After today, I know that we won’t let life get in our way! Plans for the next get together is already on the calendar!
 

Joan Brock, Mary Branagan, Carol Burns, Sheri Antoniskis, Sandie Stewart, Marvel Bell