Tripping Down Memory Lane

I just found out my best friend of 11 years is moving out of state in mid-September.

After she told me this I laid awake the other night thinking about all the stuff we've been through together.

Back in 1996 I had just moved to Fort Worth, TX and didn't know anyone. I met her through some mutual friends and I could tell right away she was full of fire. An artist and later a social worker, Stephanie exuded confidence and living life. She was five years older than me but didn't look it and had a teenage daughter who she had raised on her own. Tall, fun, and resourceful, Stephanie later earned a college degree, got a great job, and was nominated for a career award.

The night I met her she invited me to go eat with some of her friends and she regaled us with her story of a famous local person who lived in the neighborhood and her latest weird act.

"She has a self-portrait in her living room that goes from the floor to the ceiling," Stephanie told us.

I would later find out all about this woman who spent her life in and out of institutions and had even been written up in the local paper because of the intrigue factor.

The next month Stephanie went with me to see a divorce attorney then we met her friends at the lake where they were camping and swimming for the weekend. I marveled at her tenacity and wit. A much better writer than me, she missed her calling. She was also a great cook and could make a masterpiece meal out of hardly anything in the cupboard. She fed her daughter fresh vegetables she grew, had taken in near strangers in the past who she helped out, and had two different jobs when I met her. She also had varied interests and was a real Renaissance woman. She later traveled to many places and drank in the atmosphere of each, even befriending a former nun who she continued a friendship with for many years during a retreat.

She knew all about Mexico and could tell me what areas were safe and which ones weren't.