Tribute to an Unexpected Friend

I was becoming more and more annoyed.

The woman I was interviewing for a teaching position was highly qualified, very personable and had excellent references. I had thirty minutes to spend with her, to decide if she could teach in an extremely rewarding and challenging environment. I had my agenda, and I knew what I wanted to find out about her. She wanted to connect with me. I thought she was scattered. She thought I was cold. I hired her, with some misgivings. I wondered if she was going to drive me into hiding in the teacher's supply closet.

Today, nearly twenty years later, we are best friends.

Susan is funny, grounded, warm, insightful, and as loyal as any friend I have ever had in my life. Her outrageous belly laugh will cheer me up on my grayest days. Over the decades of our friendship men have come and gone, but we remain constant. She and I support what is most important in each other's lives, and encourage each other to dream outrageously. We challenge our assumptions even when it hurts. We howl with laughter together and we hold each other when the crying is so deep we can't breathe.

She loves and reflects back what is best in me when I can't see it myself, and I do the same for her.

We've seen each other through the best and the worst of times. Through struggles to conceive, divorce, reconciliation and nastier divorce, separation by expatriation, career growing pains, Wife Swap (really!) glorious successes, ferocious breast cancer, exhilarating recovery. We call our sons Frick and Frack. They call themselves God Brothers.

We call ourselves Soul Sisters. Our men have come to understand, and being wise men they give us plenty of room to do our thing.