I’m thankful for lots of things….

Right now I’m especially thankful for friendship, the kind that stays with you through everything and anything. Not the shop-talk kind of friendship- the real life and death, ups and downs, share your joy and sorrow kind of friendship.

We spent our Thanksgiving holiday taking a roadtrip to visit a dear friend of mine and her family. She is one of my non-science friends, but a working mother of two with whom I spent an enormous amount of time doing this and that with all the kids (who, by strange coincidence, are exactly the same age), before she and her family  moved away several years ago. She kept me sane during my last years of school and during the end of my academic training, and during the time when DrMrA was going up for tenure. I did my best to return the favor when her dad died unexpectedly. We laughed a lot, we cried a lot, we de-briefed each other after visits from our respective families (ok, mostly our mothers!). We both hoped for a second child, and, as luck would have it, we were craving ice-cream and pickles at the same time,  delivering healthy babies 3 months apart. Then, our babies shared a nanny.

As we watched our children grow up together, we convinced each other that although babies are cute, we were pretty darn happy with the ones we had, and we held each other to that. I would call her up after visiting so-and-so and cute newborn in the hospital… ooohing and aaahing over the newborn adorableness (that’s not even a word, but this is my blog and I can say whatever I want here), and she would remind me that I said I was done with that stage of my life. I returned that favor too.  When she told me that her husband was being transferred and they were moving, I was just very, very sad.

Now she and her family live in another state, and although we of course keep in touch,  I have totally missed her in the last three years.  Maybe it was just lucky that neither of us had family visiting this Thanksgiving, maybe it was a sign- if you believe in such things.  In any case, we had to go- the whole family- and we had such fun! When we got home this evening LittleA hugged me around the waist, buried her face in my tummy and let out a sob (of course that became Niagra falls). … a sign of what a great time she had and how sad she was at leaving good friends behind.

I knew just how she felt.

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