I Was a Teenager—My Best Friend Was in Her Forties

Michelle sat on my couch last Saturday morning, holding my newborn as my toddler, syrupy from the waffles we all ate for breakfast, climbed up her legs. My toddler calls her "granny." While shaking my head at the normalcy of the chaotic scene—the way Michelle wove herself into my life in such a way that she feels like family—I reflected on how we got here.

Every weekday morning throughout high school, I would stand at the end of the driveway of my childhood home. If it was 7:19 a.m. and I was a minute early for Paula and I's 7:20 a.m. walk, I'd have to wait for her figure to appear in the distant tree-covered street still bathed in the morning fog.

As soon as she'd emerge, I'd head in her direction until we'd meet. She'd slip her earbuds from her ears and commence our 40-minute conversation with "Girl—"

We'd talk about my performance in the school play, boy troubles, and ideas for short stories I intended to write. We'd talk about her teenage children, cancer treatments, and beach trips with her sister, Michelle.

A woman in her 40s and a teenage girl had nothing in common—I realize this now. But we didn't need anything in common other than our interest in one another's lives, listening ears, hunched-over laughter, and unwavering support.

After I graduated and went away to college, our morning walks came to a natural end. I'd return home and walk to the end of my parents' street to her house in the cul-de-sac.

I'd spend an hour with one hand on the cool granite countertops and the other clinging to a warm mug of coffee. There were peanut butter balls and views of the winding, muddy Vermilion River and a sense of being understood.

It was there I told her I was changing my major to English, despite the impracticality of the decision. It was there—at 18 years old—I told her I was in love with a blue-eyed blond named Josh.

The last time I hugged her was at Josh and I's wedding. On that hot May day, our photographer snapped a shot of us embracing, cheek to cheek.

By that autumn, she was gone. She had cancer all along, but she had lived in such a way that it was hard to tell.

I missed her whenever I walked alone. I missed her at 7:19 a.m. when I yearned to wait for her. I missed her when I had something hilarious or heartbreaking or life-changing to confide.

Three years later, her only sister—just one year her junior, sat in the kitchen of my starter home—a small blue cottage set back in the sugarcane fields of South Louisiana.

I'd invited Michelle over for shrimp and grits. I still don't remember the catalyst. What caused me to reach out to her? What caused her to say yes to the invitation?

Before either of us realized what was happening, we were waking up early on Saturdays to go to garage sales, drink iced coffee and chatter. We were walking every weekday afternoon and cooking homemade pasta. We took day trips to small towns to try the newest sushi restaurant and scavenge for antiques.

As we effortlessly became an integral part of one another's lives, I shared my Paula stories with her, and she shared her Paula stories with me.

One fall evening, as we sat in rocking chairs on her back patio after a long bike ride, she said, "You helped me remember how to live again after losing Paula."

I rocked. I listened. I could tell she had more to say.

She went on. "You got me out of the house, trying new things, having some fun."

Michelle quickly became my best friend, my person, the one I could count on.

Not long after I found out I was expecting my first baby and waving the positive pregnancy test before Michelle like a magic wand, Josh and I decided to buy a bigger house to accommodate our growing family.

The housing market was ablaze when we stumbled upon an online listing for a quintessential three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in a quiet suburb. The only problem was we were on vacation and unable to see it.

Compulsorily, I called Michelle.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Where do you need me to be?" she replied.

I briefly explained the circumstance and how we couldn't justify putting a completely blind offer on this house.

"Say no more. Evan and I are already in the car," she said, and I could hear her confused husband grumbling in the background.

Twenty minutes later, Michelle had scoped out the place and called back to approve of the house and the neighborhood. She concluded her assessment by saying, "It's a fixer upper, but I think it's worth it. We can handle it."

From a bench in a bayside park 280 miles away, while eight weeks pregnant and outrageously nauseous, I smiled. I wouldn't be alone. We could handle it.

In the coming weeks, Michelle and I walked through each room, imagining the new paint colors and countertops and light fixtures.

She'd stop by after work so we could paint every cabinet and strip of shoe molding. She gave me furniture and transformed mismatched objects I already had—ones that looked like they belonged in a college dorm room and not a proper home—into vintage-chic furnishings.

When all the remodels were complete and the fixer-upper had transformed into a warm home fit to bring our baby home to, Michelle and I supervised as Evan and Josh carried every piece of our worldly possessions out of the moving truck.

Michelle returned for days thereafter, helping me move furniture around like a game of musical chairs. To commend our hard work, the four of us took a trip to Austin, Texas, to swim in creeks, climb Mount Bonnell, and eat pizza on Rainey Street.

A few months later, Evan died unexpectedly. I held Michelle as she cried and as I cried, too. I held space for her memories, her stories, the times she was certain Evan could still speak to her. Josh wore his baseball caps. On the anniversary of Evan's death, we shared a beer he'd left in the refrigerator.

I recently read a book on friendship by Ralph Waldo Emerson. One quote resonated. "[Friendship] is fit for serene days and graceful gifts and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution."

My friendship with Paula was fit for both serene days and rough roads, and the same is true for my friendship with Michelle.

I treasure our friendship like one might relish an inherited jewel. It was somehow passed down to me, an unexpected bequeathment that took me by surprise and changed me for the better. One sister doesn't replace the other, but Michelle certainly brings joy and comfort to my life.

On Saturday mornings, when she stops in to catch up on our weeks and eat breakfast in our madhouse, there's an inexplicable ease, especially when she starts her most sensational story with, "Girl—"

We have our own inside jokes, unfiltered banter and ways of sharing, of understanding—of being understood.

Olivia Savoie is the co-founder and chief writer of Raconteur Life Story Writing. She has a degree in creative writing from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has ghostwritten more than 40 private family heirloom biographies, and has spoken about her writing on The Kelly Clarkson Show. Her essays have also been published on Today.com, Next Avenue, and in Galveston's Coast Monthly.

All views expressed are the author's own.

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