Like family

While growing up, our family was super close to another family. This friendship went back to my babyhood when my parents lived in the same building as their parents. The dads worked at the same company and were best friends for many years. When one moved to Atlanta, the other soon followed and our families were close all the years I was growing up. At this point, our lives diverged quite a lot and we saw less and less of each other. The last time I saw them was at my wedding over 25 years ago. But I consider them close friends despite the distance and time away. The dad in the family died yesterday and I’m feeling pretty gutted about it. This is hitting me harder than losing some family has been.

I talked to my mom tonight and while talking I also discovered another mutual friend had died some time ago. She was ten years older than me and lived across the street. She was our babysitter and at times she had all six of us kids together at once and loved it. She often spent more money on us than she earned. The last time I saw her was at my brother’s wedding which was a few years before my own. My parents discovered this while checking out her Facebook page and seeing an RIP message from someone going back a couple of years. It aches to know it’s been so long but we had no mutual contacts who might have alerted us to her death.