Best Friends

Couples celebrate Valentine’s Day in February. Wedding and anniversaries are marked with grand affairs. Birthdays, particularly the significant ones ending in a zero or a five, often involve elaborate and festive gatherings. Mothers are saluted in May on Mother’s Day, followed by Father’s Day in June. Now we have Sibling’s Day on April 10th and, although not federally recognized, the governors of 40 states have issued Sibling Day proclamations since 1998.

Where does this leave best friends?

Those individuals who remain friends for decades. And yes, while a spouse is often described as a best friend this person probably wasn’t around a decade, or even two decades, before the wedding. A friend, as an outsider, has a perspective into the joys and sorrows of the past. The expectations that were never met. The accomplishments that have been achieved. A friend can peer through the glass box that wraps around all of us with the insight and perspective of time.

I have a best friend, Although I prefer to describe her as my “closest” friend because the word seems to describe what we have shared. We met in 1968 in New York City. Exactly fifty years ago this September. We traveled through the late 60’s and early 70’s together, exploring the East Village, adoring Joan Baez and Judy Collins. We were enamored with Jim Morrison and loved mini-skirts. We found apartments in the Village. I traveled to England and studied there. She traveled to Spain and eventually made it a second home with her husband. She remembers my brothers as teenagers and can vividly recall visiting my family for the first time. My mother served us chicken divan and let us sit together at an elegantly set table she had arranged on the porch. She was with me when my husband died in Washington. She is always there at critical moments.

My mother had a best friend too. Arlene Whittemore Johnson. Arlene died last week. My mother and Arlene met in 1933 when they were both twelve years old and they remained best friends for eighty-five years. Imagine the perspective of such a relationship. Franklin D. Roosevelt was President of the United States when they met. They lived through wars, a world transformed by technology and the death of their spouses. They have both had the experience of getting to know grandchildren and now great-grandchildren.

The way my Aunt Barbara tells the story: she met my mother, Elizabeth, when my mother was nine years old and a member of the Girl Scout Troop Aunt Barbara was co-leading. Aunt Barbie is five years older than my mother and her younger sister Arlene. Aunt Barbara introduced Arlene to Elizabeth when they were twelve years old and attending the same school in Plymouth. They immediately became fast friends. Years later, at my mother’s wedding, and with Arlene as a bridesmaid, Barbara Whittemore met my mother’s older brother James Millar, they married and Barbara became a part of our family.

If you are a native of New Hampshire you may have driven down Route 4 to Northwood, and stopped for an ice cream or hamburger at Johnson’s Dairy Bar. The original restaurant was opened in 1955 by Sam and Louise Johnson, their son Norman and his wife Helen Bartlett and Sam Jr. and his wife Arlene Whittemore Johnson. When the Johnson family was managing the Dairy Bar, the pies, pastries, and muffins were made in their kitchens. As a little girl, I often visited with Arlene’s children, Becky, Sammy and Sally and one cannot imagine how exciting it was to be invited to stay on a working farm. We could run through the field down to the Diary Bar where there was access to over 35 flavors of ice creams. The Johnson’s sold the Dairy Bar in 1975.

Arlene was beloved by the community of Northwood, where she served as Town Clerk from 1978 to 1998, the Northwood Advent Christian Church, her large extended family and her many friends. With twinkling eyes and a quick wit, her laughter and energy filled the room. One never stopped by her home without being invited for a lavish lunch or afternoon tea and my recollection of her is often wearing an apron as she loved baking. In a few months Aunt Barbara will celebrate her 102nd Birthday, my mother celebrated her 97th Birthday in April and Arlene would have celebrated her 97th Birthday in December.

At its core, life is about vulnerability and letting go. Comfort is knowing there is an individual who understands the genesis of the sorrow and the joy we often feel. Someone who remembers you as a youth when anything seemed possible and how it feels when you begin to experience the fragility that defines aging.

It doesn’t take a calendar date, an extravagant party or a special greeting card to celebrate a friendship. An unexpected note or a warm hug will express it all.