Who would have thought that my best friend would be walking the halls of FHC with me, the two of us recreating the image of our moms striding step-by-step together on the same carpet 24 years earlier?
“Tell me a story,” I would beg.
Warm blanket encasing my five-year-old self and wet hair splayed across the pillow, I’d plead for stories from my mom’s Michigan high school. In those distant memories, I thought of FHC as the setting for tales from decades ago, rather than the constant in my life it is today.
I would always be met with a goodnight and a kiss on my head as my eyes had already dipped into sleep, but sometimes, that night included a short story about my mom as a teenager. A story of my mom and her best friend Linsey.
Described to me as my mom’s closest friend, I heard of Linsey’s bond with my mom years before I would end up sitting in her kitchen, watching her cheer her daughter and me on from the FHC volleyball stands, or hitching a ride to Starbucks and a basketball game.
They fell out of touch and went to different colleges. Linsey moved to Arizona. My mom moved to California. Years later, an unlikely reunion at a freshman volleyball parent meeting led to distant recognition and a stunned conversation about how their paths merged at the same place they spent years in with each others’ company.
When my mom recounted the connection to me later that night, I was in disbelief at her story, shocked that my fast friend was the daughter of my mom’s best friend.
They had daughters but a month apart and made analogous decisions to return to the Forest Hills school district. By some miracle, we both made the volleyball team, only to become friends days before our moms reconnected.
Years later, this fall, our moms are taking photos of us with our arms intertwined, heading to our first Homecoming. The style of dresses, the hair, and the poses may have changed. But the connection with someone who fills every gap in your heart and will stand with you forever is fleeting, like the fashion trends, and something that should be treasured.
I’m not sure if our reunion is serendipitous or statistical, yet I can’t believe I get to spend my four years of high school with Linsey’s daughter, Gabbi.
The pure awe at this miracle that somehow brought out-of-touch best friends back together through their daughters will live in my heart forever. It will remind me of how ambiguous but intentional life is, how the choices and actions made will have consequences and results that form life-changing relationships, placing someone precisely where they are meant to be, winding together two friendships spanning 24 years.
Thank you, invisible string, for giving me the best friend I needed and giving my mom hers back, too.
