My Friend

She was working in her yard when I stopped to view the vacant house next door. We visited briefly and I asked her a few questions about the neighborhood. I also wanted to know if she could tell me anything about the house. Encouraged by her answers I called my realtor, viewed the property and wrote a contract. While moving in, my new neighbor would come over with sandwiches, cold drinks and a helpful hand. We became friends, good friends, and we shared each others victories and comiserated over our defeats. I enjoyed tinkering so she jokingly bought me a tool belt loaded with various tools. She would call me when she had a leak in her dishwasher or when the filters in the attic needed changing. I even changed the flat tire on her car parked on the side of the tollway. She nicknamed me Josephine after the independent fix-it lady in the sit-com 'Archie Bunker'. She had a gift, a way of telling a story that would leave me howling with gut-grabbing laughter.

I remember the day she came to my door, sobbing and babbling incoherently. My arms wrapped around her we sat on the kitchen floor. As she calmed down my friend shared that her mother had just died. She, an only child, was inconsolable. And the realization that hers was the next generation left her in shock. I don't know how long we were there. It doesn't matter. I'm just glad I could be there for her. I know if the opposite were true she would have done the same for me.

Oh by the way, did I tell you? My friend is black.