The Facebook Redemption

A year after my family came to the US from Cuba we had scrounged away enough money to move out of our efficiency apartment in Miami into a two bedroom apartment in a 12 unit building in a nice neighborhood. I was 8 years old. Very shortly after a woman moved into the apartment directly below us with her daughter who was also 8 years old. It was an immediate friendship. I was ecstatic to see her considering all I had to play with was my brother and a bunch of boys since that's all the building offered in the kid department. We pretty much spent every free moment together. When we were about 14 she moved, luckily it was across the street so we could continue our love fest. We did all those things little girls do, played with barbies, rode bikes, roller skated (badly) made mudpies, brought home stray puppies, went to the movies, sat around doing absolutely nothing and giggling endlessly at nothing in particular; then did all those things young teenage girls do, flirted with every boy in the neighborhood, took dancing lessons, went to the movies, went shopping, planned our weddings, stayed up watching movies until all hours during Summer vacation, dancing and singing in the rain because we saw it in a movie musical (our personal favorite) fought over stupid things, talked about clothes, makeup, hair, boys, boys , boys, went to Disney World...

bought stuffed animals

talked about boys, clothes, boys, clothes...and a million other things. When I was 16 my father died and we moved to another neighborhood shortly thereafter. She and I were in different grades, different schools and as it happens all too often you start to drift apart and away, new friends, new interests...life. We did stay in touch on and off and when I was getting married I called her and asked her to be one of my bridesmaids; in those wedding planning sessions we had as teenagers I had promised her that she would be a bridesmaid, and so she was...

She's the tall one in the pink (that was a joke with us, she was very tall , I was very short)

and the gorgeous dark haired one is my brother's wife, who was my maid of honor. Six months after I got married Frank and I moved to New Jersey and we completely lost touch. She did run into my mother who told me she was married and had two little girls and that was that.

And why my post title? I joined facebook a few years ago to keep track of my niece and be able to communicate with her because that seemed to be the only way, I'm not really much into it, have very few facebook friends, think of it as some dumb bragging thing except that one day a couple of months ago I put her name in and there she was, and I sent her a message and two days ago we spent two glorious hours on the phone catching up and giggling as if we had never ever stopped. I get to add another F to BF and continue onto phase 2. 

Thank you facebook!