Mom called yesterday to tell me that Miss P is in the hospital. Could I take the time to drop by and say hi? Our families have been bound together for close to fifty years through that fickle thing known as fate transformed into friendship. If there were ever two more polar opposites in this universe, it was my parents and this couple. They were both educators, he my elementary school principal and she an English teacher in my junior high school. Later she became a librarian not to be taken lightly by the idiots of the early teenage years. He remarked to my parents that I seemed "bored" in grade school. He would peek into the classroom and observe my daydreaming self gazing out the window until crunch time came, and then I would ace the test of the day. Their son Timothy and I are the same age and the Moms played bridge together. Every other Tuesday...without fail. It was girls' night out ritual for those wild women.

No Christmas season was complete until our families had gathered to share a meal and exchange presents. The rest of this ensemble consisted of J&J and their two boys. When we were in about the sixth grade, our parents hosted a big old joint birthday party at the park complete with scaveneger hunt and weenie roast for the three of us who were born within days of each other. Poopie and Timothy and Jackie, the three musketeers. I suppose that is when I learned that boys make mighty good friends and aren't nearly as complicated as girls in the emotions department. I got my first adolescent kiss in the bushes from young Jack.

I tiptoed into Miss P's room this morning and found her busy frettin' and fussing over who knows what. She was alone as I pulled the chair up next to her bed and said hello. At first she called me by my Mama's name...an understandable slip since we look so much alike. Reaching over to hold her hand I noticed how frail she is. "I love you" she said. "I love you too, Sweetie." There was such agony in her eyes and facial expression as her mind raced wanting to say a million little things to me, like how proud she is of me and the boys. "I love you." The bruises on her little face, fresh from the falls, stared back at me. The strokes have taken away most of the use of her body and much of her mind, yet she still manages to say those three little words.

In the end, that's all that counts.