meeting Etta

Last weekend I flew to Denver to meet new baby Etta. Her mother, Mollie, has been one of my best friends since we were thirteen or so, when Mollie was one of the only people my age I both liked and admired (do  sound like Mr. Darcy?). A few years later Mollie introduced me to another best friend, Anna, and I wondered if I'd ever need any more friends. These two do it for me.

loitering.  we were friends before people had cell phones.

I've made other friends since then, of course, but there's something about the kind of friendship that begins in adolescence, lives together through college, hikes the grand canyon, and backpacks through Italy. The kind of friendship that has stayed together from Anne of Green Gables to Steel Magnolias to Amelie to Downton Abbey. The kind of friendship that's seen cancer, depression, exes, early morning prayer, international moves, weddings, funerals, and babies. It's got roots, and ease of communication, a shared language born of shared memories. It's gold.

Mollie and Anna both live in Denver now, as do my brother Jimmy, my sister-in-law EA, and my Aunt Julie and her clan. Thanks to my sweet husband for singlehandedly caring for our children all weekend, I got to see them all.

baby Etta

Anna and I playing aunts