I Am a Witness

[By the way, I've had this annoying eyelash or something in my eye for the last four hours.  I plan on being really thankful when I finally get that out.]

Now, let me tell you what I witnessed.

I witnessed such an act of loving friendship at once ridiculously comical and sweetly moving, that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Thank you for laughter and tears.

My friend Betty is in the hospital awaiting back surgery.  Betty is the hearth around which my friends gather each day at lunch.  Quite literally, we sit around her table in a half-circle, while she radiates caring, loving advice and outrageous humor.  The first seat on Betty's right is reserved for Cindy.  It has been this way for 30 years.

Thank you for consistency.

When Cindy was hired as a brand-spanking-new [no spanking] Special Education teacher at age 25, she hired Betty as her Special Ed Aide.  They have been best friends ever since.  The stories they share of their lifelong friendship make us laugh out loud or leave us weepy.  I have had the great privilege of coming to this communion table, where all are welcome, for only the past few years, but they have changed my life.  [I have already written of the time Cindy helped me when my daughter Lindsey was being bullied.]

Thank you for good advice and bad jokes.

But Betty is in the hospital.  She had one back surgery over the summer [she purposely scheduled her back surgery for summer vacation so she wouldn't miss working with Cindy and the students in Fall].  Now the pain of two new ruptured disks has her on her back!  I visited Betty yesterday after school.  Cindy arrived ahead of me.  Cindy was seated at her side when I got there.  Betty was her feisty self.

Thank you for feisty.

At the end of the visit, Cindy got up to kiss Betty good-bye.  Well, there was a table in the way and a cane involved.  Cindy made every effort to lean in, while Betty did all she could to pull up closer despite her bad back.  No good-bye kiss was ever so clumsy and so lovingly bestowed.  It had every one of their thirty years together tied up in it.  And it was just as funny as one of Betty's stories.  I was a witness.

Thank you, Cindy and Betty, for welcoming me into your lives.

Thank you, God, for great role models of kindness and friendship.  Thank you for Cindy and Betty.

[Please keep Betty in your prayers.  Thank you.]