Honie Briggs

I have a small circle of close friends. Some I hear from regularly, but there are others who I go months without talking to. Not for any reasons other than our lives are busy, we live far apart and our friendships aren’t sustained with chit-chat. We’ve experienced something together and our bond goes deeper than dishing about who’s on dancing with the stars.

It is uncanny how often over the years I’ve been thinking about someone and out of the blue, a day or so later I get a call or an email from them. My friend Donna was like that. We might not be in touch for two or three months and then one day I look at the refrigerator magnet she gave me that says, “Remember to LauGh eAch DaY!” I think about the time we were at the beach and we called her son and asked for the address of his friend’s tattoo shop. She tells him we’re getting matching tattoos. He is psyched, “Very Cool Mom.” We end up getting the symbol for friendship inked on our ankles. They were fakes, of course, because for all our tough talk, an airbrush tat at the T-Shirt Hut on the boardwalk was only 5 bucks.

So, I’m remembering to laugh and suddenly the phone rings. It was my friend. That kind of thing happened all the time between us for 23 years. I miss Donna. This time last year I was with her. She was weak and it was almost time for us to say our last goodbye. We both knew it. She made me promise not to cry when it was her time to go. I promised and I did try very hard not to. Sometimes if a tear started to slip down my face, I would apologize and say something like, “I don’t know why I cry, it just gives me a headache.”

Now it’s almost a year later. Yesterday I noticed something in the air. Sure the temperature is 20 degrees cooler, but there is something else. Aside from it not seeming like a big hair dryer every time I step outside, there’s a feeling that comes with the approach of autumn, even when it isn’t yet in full swing. It’s a feeling that relief is on the way. Relief from the relentless heat, from mind numbing boredom of staying inside taking refuge in the AC. Passing the time writing and spending more time thinking than anyone should. Oh and reading blogs, blogs and more blogs.

I don’t know how it happens, but it is uncanny how more and more when I think about something, anything, almost instantly there is a blog about the very thing I was thinking. Women’s issues blogs, human issues blogs, blogs about blogs. Blogs about scandal, about books, cars, craziness, and unbelievably this morning, I was thinking about how I should write about crying and what-da-ya-know, right before my very eyes, there appeared on my screen an awesome blog about crying.

CRYING of all things!

This is really starting to freak me out. It’s just too damn funny. When I was choosing a song to add to this post, for some reason I thought about where Donna and I met. We met in Illinois. So, of course, the awesome music of the band Chicago is perfect for this post.

Well, I was listening to this  and then this song began to play and it seemed like a continuation of the thought and then my god!!! this song.  I know, it’s probably just that I’m projecting. I don’t care. IT”S PERFECTION!  I think I just might cry.