I think I was four years old when the Smiths (Karl, Lois, Kim, and Steph) moved in next door to us. The story goes that I wasn't exactly welcoming when Kim appeared to introduce herself, and whatever I said sent her home unhappy. Her mother, Lois, marched next door to confront my mother, who'd recently given birth to my brother--and was probably the cause of my four-year-old rudeness--and my mother thought, oh boy, what do we have here?
Apparently, something wonderful.
That meeting was the beginning of a friendship that still beats fifty-three years later. Our parents remained friends, keeping in touch even after we moved, a feat managed during the age of snail mail and costly long-distance phone calls. Through their committed friendship, we kids stayed in contact. To this day, I count Kim and Steph as my golden friends.
Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other's gold.
Our families vacationed together. We alternated holidays. We shared the good times together as we did the hard times.
Lois died today. It wasn't unexpected, but it was still a shock. I just saw her two years ago, before COVID, where we talked about age, longevity, and death. While she was unsure about staying in her home, she enjoyed her family, friends, and activities. She was in reasonably good health and in no hurry to join her husband or my parents.
Unfortunately, life took a turn in these last two years.
Today is also my birthday. I can hear Lois now, in her distinctive voice with her signature "tsk" and "oh," lamenting how she should've planned that better. Waited a day. Or left yesterday.
"Oh, I didn't do it on purpose. You know that. Right? O-h. I would never-- Oh, Cara."
It wasn't enough to share November as our birthday month? Yeah, yeah, you wanted to make sure I never forgot you! That's what I said to her--aloud--when I heard the news. I liked to kid Lois. She was always good for a reaction.
Lois was just a second mother. I shared many firsts with her. She was with me when I got my period, took my first plane trip alone, and through my wedding and the birth of my first daughter. Kim and I lived with Lois' father and stepmother when we first moved to Florida. I was there years later when both of them died.
In the summer of 1976 when I was eleven, my parents went to the Olympics. I was sent to PA to live with the Smiths for the summer. Lois had me do everything that Kim and Steph did, putting me on their swim team, and then advocating for me when I won my races and the other team complained. I remember her kindness when I got my period. How she showed me my hygiene options and then secretly reached out to my parents to make sure they'd call me later that night.
At the end of the summer, Lois walked me onto the plane, gave me a gift to open when I got into the air and talked to the flight attendant. She left and returned twice, much to the horror of the flight attendant. Both times were more to reassure herself than for my benefit.
Lois was a doer. One of those people who had to keep busy. If she wasn't volunteering or reading, she was sewing. Her upstairs sewing room was a thing to behold, and my brother and I loved that she included us in every sewing project. I still have stuff she made me: my first book bag for school, a purple octopus I spread out each morning in the middle of my bed, clothes, a pillow with my name on it, and a keepsake box that holds all the cards I've received over the years. I also have the giant Christmas stocking she sent Kim and me when we lived in our Florida apartment.
Getting a Lois gift in the mail was the best thing ever. One year she made us all tall, cloth dancing partners that fit on the end of our feet. Mine was a boy with red hair and a bow tie, and my brother had a lion with an unruly mane. Lois sewed snaps on the thumbs to hold their arms in place around our waist or neck while we danced. I wished I'd kept that guy.
She was a thinker. A problem solver. She liked to make lists, and if people weren't busy, she assigned them jobs. My dad and Karl always had honey-do lists, whether on vacation or not. In the summers, she'd leave circled newspaper ads with activities or jobs we might be interested in. She emailed us those when we moved to Florida, and two years ago, Kim and I were given the task of removing paint that her granddaughter had gotten on the backseat of her car.
One was never idle when around Lois.
But she was also a worrier. Not just with her children and family, but with the state of the world, the future, the neighbor's kid running around barefoot. Worrying came naturally. As a kid, I didn't think too much about it. It was just a part of Lois, and while it drove her daughters nuts, I was pretty oblivious. It did, however, keep her from sleeping. I would always tip-toe on my way to the bathroom because it was right next to her bedroom, and I didn't want to be the reason why Lois didn't get a good night's sleep. We talked about it recently. How motherhood upped the ante and how it wasn't easy to turn the worrying off. Not sleeping was a huge downer for her.
Lois was an avid reader. She volunteered at the library and always told us not to bemoan when we had overdue books because the fine was needed and went to a greater cause. I passed that on to my girls and recently repeated it to my husband when he griped about paying my library fine. Books were another great gift from Lois.
She had a lot of faith, which was a bone of contention between her and my mother. I think she tied quite unsuccessfully to sway my mother toward the light. When that didn't work, she did her best to see that I at least made a valiant attempt at seeing things through a different lens. My mother swore Lois took me to church to irritate her, but I enjoyed the dressing up part and the attention.
After we kids got married and spread out, we didn't see much of one another, but Lois kept in contact. She was a huge fan of this blog. She'd read my stories, send me emails with comments, and she always kept me abreast of the Smith happenings.
Lois also kept sending me articles that pertained to my interests. Some came via mail, others via email. I recently came across some Steelers articles she'd cut out of the local newspaper. She was a sports fan but got a kick out of my Steelers obsession.
Until a few weeks ago, I still received articles or links to podcasts or websites she thought I'd be interested in reading.
In 2006, my mother and I took the girls and traveled to Pennsylvania. It was a chance to introduce the grandchildren, my girls, and Stephanie's son, and we spent a wonderful week visiting and catching up. I tried to explain the importance of our friendship. To convey how the Smith house was so much a part of me, but I'm not sure my children understood the connection then.
Lois and I had some meaningful written communication, especially after Karl got sick. I could relate because I'd gone through something similar with my mother, and I'd been with Lois when she'd made the decisions for her own father. It was an interesting dynamic to come full circle. To go from a child and surrogate parent relationship to one as two adults.
Today, in thinking through the last fifty-three years, I'm so grateful I made the trip in October 2019. As I got older and lost my own parents, those relationships meant more to me. Lois was the last of the parents. I really wanted to let her know how important she'd been in my life.
I'm so glad I did. It was a much-needed balm personally, but also a good trip down memory lane and a reminder of how important friendships can be when people work at it. We told stories and laughed until our stomachs hurt. We talked about death and the future. Like my mother, she hoped to go out on her own terms and when she was ready. Her kids made sure that happened.
I will miss beating her in Words with Friends. I will miss her emails. Most of all, I will miss that voice, her frown, the wrinkled brow and pursed lips when I said something nutty, and that tsk and her drawn-out, exaggerated "Oh. Cara--. What do you think of that? Can you believe she said that?"
I now have a Birthday angel, watching over me every year.
