Friendship Day: August 5, 2007

Friendship Day is this Sunday and I didn't want it to pass by without some recognition. I thought I would do a post about the people who have made a real difference in my life. As I got going on this, I realized I needed to break it up into three separate posts. So, I will have one each day leading up to Friendship Day on Sunday August 5th.

I guess my very first friends were my sisters.


This is Roxana. She is my older sister, but if you can get her to tell you how much older, you are doing better than me. We don't live close to each other anymore, but miles don't separate our hearts. I love you.



This is my sister, Cheryl. She is three years older than me. We shared a bedroom right up until the day she left home to get married. How much time did we spend in that room listening to records? We are not a very expressive family. But, I want you to know how much I love you. We started out in life together and we'll probably finish it that way too.





Cheryl and her friend Sara on the boat to Liberty Island.

This is a picture of my eighth birthday (if I'm counting the candles right). This is me with the groovy cat eye glasses. In the middle was my best friend, Bonnie Nell Wheeler. We lived in a small town called Fellows. And when I say small, it was small. She was my best friend until she got me to smoke a cigarette in the back shed in fourth grade. My parents thought it was best to try to keep away the bad influences. Not long after the Marlboro incident, we moved to the big city. Bakersfield.

I am going to skip from age 8 to about age 16. Lori was my best friend in high school. We sang together in the school choir. She was the most amazing singer. She had a beautiful alto voice and could sing just about anything. If she had put her mind to it, she could have really done something with it.



I still miss her.

I met Holly my freshman year of college. I was away from home for the first time and I was scared. And, lonely. I was ready to pack it in and move back to B-field after my first semester. She was the first person to offer her friendship to me back then. Without you, Hol, I would not be the person I am today. I would have dropped out and never would have become a Speech Therapist. So, thank you for being such a positive influence in my life.

What can I say about Wendell? At 28, he is one of my youngest friends. :)
We met working in the University Student Union at CSUN.
We spent so much time together in those years. While Holly got me through the first two years of college, Wendell got me through of the rest.
I know that the reasons we drifted apart fall on my shoulders. But, I will always have a special place in my heart for you, Wendell. I love you and miss you.

This is a photo of Renee, Chris, Joy and Lynn. While they were all my friends, I wanted to post about Chris.
I also met her while working at the Student Union. There are few people in my life that have had the kind of impact Chris had on me. We laughed together, dreamed together, cried together. We knew the best and the worst about each other. I sang at her wedding. I saw her first child being born. You will always mean so much to me. "Friends are friends forever."