I met my best friend 20 years ago (next month)…we had the good fortune of being assigned to live on the same floor of our dormitory. It was my second year, her first. We were both a little shy at first, not real outgoing, not too confident, two peas in a pod. We’ve been friends for 20 years. Some of those years, we never saw each other. She’s always lived in Iowa, but I spread my wings for a time, and living on the East Coast as a student, usually only made it home to see my family at Christmas. We spoke on the phone every couple of months, always admonishing ourselves for not being “better friends” and “keeping in touch”…but that’s just it. We were friends. We would always be friends. We didn’t have to talk to each other every day to be friends.

Saturday, I got to spend the day with her and her mom, doing girl stuff and going to see Mama Mia and eating theater popcorn for dinner. These days, we live about ten miles apart. I see her every month, I can talk to her whenever I want, I can drive over to see her whenever I want. I was here for her wedding, for the birth and baptism of her babies, and seeing them grow.

Her oldest, a little guy who will be turning four in two short months, is a cherubic little genius who never fails to bring a smile to my face. They moved to a new home last year, and she asked if I would paint a mural in his bedroom. In interviewing my little “client”, we determined that the mural was to have a truck, an airplane, a school bus, a boat, Daddy’s truck, and a submarine. That’s right, all that and a sub, too. This is the mural I painted in his new bedroom:
Complete with Daddy’s truck (on the bridge), my Beetle and Mommy’s car at the stop sign…
and, of course, a submarine…