AM
My mother claimed AM as her best friend. She had a daughter (R), four months younger than me. R did everything first, before me. And I think most everything I did (softball, gymnastics, tap & ballet, Girl Scouts…), I did because R was doing it. I had a rough time with jealousy over the talented and able and beautiful younger "sister", that wasn't my sister. We were friends by circumstance more than choice… and my mother was constantly referring to us as being "like sisters: playing happily one moment, fighting the next and ready to take on anyone who offends the other…" true or not, I believed it :)
Anyway…
AM was like a second mom or favored aunt to me. She was kind and caring, but with standards and expectations, I think, higher than my mother's.
She tricked me into eating mushrooms one night. I don't know how she was motivated to dice those things so small, but she had the victory when she told me I had eaten them in my spaghetti and liked it never knowing what those little black things were. I still don't like mushrooms, but I know I can have the good manners to gag them down if I have to (I can cut them as small as I need to to not detect that mushy squshyness). lol. I know that just because I don't like something, doesn't give me the right to offend someone and their work… if it won't kill me, there is a way to accept it… graciously.
I thought AM was Supermom! I had it in my head she could do everything in seconds. She got off work at six, the nights she picked me up from school, she arrived at six, and she always served dinner at six! Not sure how she did it, but she did!! She was where she said and did what she said, when she said she would.
It's amazing of all I remember, how much more I don't remember. But I know there was comfort and safety with her. I knew she was there and I didn't have to worry when I was with her.
As a little girl, I always assumed she would be part of my world…
It's amazing how deceived we can be. In those darkest days. I know I could have come to her, but then, at that time, I was convinced that she and R were like everybody else I had known and walked away from me. It had been presented to me that A simply didn't like my stepfather and so she dropped a friendship that was very close, like it was no big deal. I was led to believe that since my mother wouldn't listen A wanted nothing more to do with us… well, I know now there was more to it than that. There were many details that were not shared with me until I found A and reconnected with her in 1999. She is a careful and discerning person who trusted her instincts and protected her child… the way my mother should have. When I got her side of things, everything made sense… so much was left unanswered, A gave me the answers… and she was right.
We have to make careful choices, right choices even when it's hard, even when it requires letting go of dear friends. What's right is right. Sometimes that can sound cold and unloving… but it's not. It's wise.
I respect her greatly for making the right choices.
She has had an amazing testimony over the last several years as she has dealt with(I think) four different types of cancer, been a foster parent and dealt with jobs coming and going, but God has been good to provide and care for her as she trusts Him. He is so good! She has remained constant and steady following His lead… an example worth following because it's a life that points to Christ.
Anyway…
AM was like a second mom or favored aunt to me. She was kind and caring, but with standards and expectations, I think, higher than my mother's.
She tricked me into eating mushrooms one night. I don't know how she was motivated to dice those things so small, but she had the victory when she told me I had eaten them in my spaghetti and liked it never knowing what those little black things were. I still don't like mushrooms, but I know I can have the good manners to gag them down if I have to (I can cut them as small as I need to to not detect that mushy squshyness). lol. I know that just because I don't like something, doesn't give me the right to offend someone and their work… if it won't kill me, there is a way to accept it… graciously.
I thought AM was Supermom! I had it in my head she could do everything in seconds. She got off work at six, the nights she picked me up from school, she arrived at six, and she always served dinner at six! Not sure how she did it, but she did!! She was where she said and did what she said, when she said she would.
It's amazing of all I remember, how much more I don't remember. But I know there was comfort and safety with her. I knew she was there and I didn't have to worry when I was with her.
As a little girl, I always assumed she would be part of my world…
It's amazing how deceived we can be. In those darkest days. I know I could have come to her, but then, at that time, I was convinced that she and R were like everybody else I had known and walked away from me. It had been presented to me that A simply didn't like my stepfather and so she dropped a friendship that was very close, like it was no big deal. I was led to believe that since my mother wouldn't listen A wanted nothing more to do with us… well, I know now there was more to it than that. There were many details that were not shared with me until I found A and reconnected with her in 1999. She is a careful and discerning person who trusted her instincts and protected her child… the way my mother should have. When I got her side of things, everything made sense… so much was left unanswered, A gave me the answers… and she was right.
We have to make careful choices, right choices even when it's hard, even when it requires letting go of dear friends. What's right is right. Sometimes that can sound cold and unloving… but it's not. It's wise.
I respect her greatly for making the right choices.
She has had an amazing testimony over the last several years as she has dealt with(I think) four different types of cancer, been a foster parent and dealt with jobs coming and going, but God has been good to provide and care for her as she trusts Him. He is so good! She has remained constant and steady following His lead… an example worth following because it's a life that points to Christ.
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