One of a kind soup...

I have a friend. We've been friends since we were 19; that's 37 years, but who's counting? Herman and I wouldn't be married if I hadn't met her first. She set us up on a blind date.

Over the years we have helped each other through many rough patches. We've shared sorrows about our kids, husbands, losing our parents, divorces and on and on. We've attended weddings, funerals, graduations, birthday parties and exercise classes together. We've gone on more diets and self improvement programs than I care to remember. We've rocked and diapered each others babies, and scolded each others children. We've gotten pedicures, gone apple picking, taken our kids trick or treating together, and bided our time in hospital waiting rooms, waiting with bated breath for children and grandchildren to come into the world. Once we were even loaves of Wonder Bread together. We have called each other in the middle of the night to share our fears and joys. We have cheered each other on and cried for one another.

You don't make a friend like this over night. It takes years of simmering and slow cooking, with many additions over the years, until you have a soup that has layers and layers of subtle flavors. It is a soup that will comfort your soul, sustain your will to go on, and warm your heart when the cruel world has turned it cold. The aroma is so unique that it can never be duplicated by anyone else. Eventually the stew is so complex that even the chefs themselves no longer remember all the ingredients that made it what it has become. They could never give anyone else the recipe. It's a very rare thing, indeed, and everyone has to make their very own.

Most of the time during our lives, through some miracle, we have managed to only have one crisis at a time. She has one and then I have one. We have always had the time to devote to the other's crisis. This is not the case now. We are both going through a very difficult time. Life is hard for each of us right now. We will live through it and come out the other side, but life is more difficult now because we are not able to give each other the full time support that we usually do. We give each other a quick call or send an email, and then each of us goes about our day with the knowledge that we are in the thoughts of the other. That is the best we can do for each other right now.

Still, I know she's there and she knows I'm here.

Better days will come again.

Until then, I'm thinking of you.

As for anyone else who reads this today, I wish for you a soup with an aroma as sweet as mine.