We made it….

Warm coffee was in our hands,  well a dunkaccino was in her hands to be specific. Our bellies were about to burst. Both so close to delivering our second babies. Our sons played trucks together at our feet. Life was good. We sat there talking for hours, just like almost every week before that since she went part-time in her job. We had finally made it. We were exactly where we had planned we would be since we were 5 year old little girls playing dolls together for hours and hours.  We were happily married. We both had sons who were best friends in the making, with our second children on the way.. One boy.. One girl.. destined for marriage of course.

“We are always going to be best friends. Our kids are too. We are gonna have three kids each” she would say while twirling around, her red hair trailing behind her. She had our lives planned out for us, I was okay with that. Her plan sounded perfect to me. What could be better than two best friends and their families growing old together?

A few years later we sat at her families campsite at a picnic table, she had her pen and paper out. “Okay.. So we need a secret code, that we can put on all of our stuff that will mean Best Friends til the end, but no one will know what we are saying”. We brainstormed ideas for at least an hour. We finally came up with 73-Soccer. Her soccer number and mine. We wrote it on any letter, birthday card, and practically every piece of paper we gave each other for the next 20 years. (She eventually ended up being #5 in Soccer but neither of us had the heart to change it after all those years).

Our teen years came and went.. We had our moments where we fought more like sisters and behaved less like friends… but we always found our way back to each other. No matter how far away we got, we always knew all it would take was one “I need you” and we would be there in an instant. No questions asked. She called me her body-guard… My 5’9″  stature would always protect her 5″3′ self. Just as her big bright smile always had a way of making my lopsided grin appear. We needed each other. Even when we didn’t know it.

Sitting there with her as grown adults, both mommy’s, both so happy. It was a moment we had dreamed of. We had made it. We were exactly where we had planned. I remember her rocking her chair back and forth while teasingly saying “Okay, so how are we tricking our hubs into 3 babes?” That was her.. So uncomfortable and pregnant, yet still looking ahead to the future of the next baby. Both our husbands liked to tell us we were never having three babies.. yet they both knew we would. They knew these plans were 28 years in the making between two life long friends.

Little did we know that only 4 months later our lives as we knew them would change forever. My best friend was diagnosed with ovarian cancer for the second time, just two weeks after her sweet baby girl was born. This time it had spread throughout her body. But her positive attitude, and plans remained. She never once gave into the pain. She never once gave up. She never once was angry or upset about what she had been dealt. She never once asked “Why me?” Instead she smiled her beautiful smile, day after day. She believed, and never gave up faith. She fought, like I had never seen someone fight for something. In the end she knew her plans were different from what God had planned. She knew she had to make changes to those dreams she had while twirling around her living room all those years ago. She knew it was her time to go be with him, and as much as she didn’t want to leave her sweet babes, and her family.. she trusted God had a greater purpose for all this.

A few weeks before she went to be with the Lord she texted me “73-Soccer…. We made it.” I knew in my heart that was her way of preparing me. We both knew what that meant. Best Friends Til the end. The end was coming soon. It was never the ending we had imagined all those years ago..and was an ending that came much sooner than we could have ever prepared ourselves for. But as I told her the last time I saw her, there is no end to this friendship. We will be best friends forever, and I’ll see her again. And although living out these plans we call life, without her pains me more than words can possibly say, I am sure she is up there twirling around making even more plans for us as we speak.

So until then…73-Soccer ♥

 

XO Nicole