A Story of a Friendship

If you're married and have small children, do you have a "couple" friend who you and your spouse visit with from time to time? You know...you take your children to their house one night and hang out, and then maybe the next time they bring their children with them to yours? I hope you do. Those are wonderful friendships to have.

Did your parents do this?

My dad had a childhood friend named Jim who grew up to be one of his groomsmen. Through the years they stayed in touch, and between the years of 1984 and 1992, we lived in Rolla, and so did my dad's friend and his family. Every now and then we would get together; his daughters were my age - one was exactly one year older (we share a birthday!) and the other is a few months younger but the same school year. I remember playing with dolls, playing school, playing house. Whatever little girls can come up with. We don't remember for sure, but we think we may have played on the same softball team during summer youth league; if not, we definitely played against each other.

When our family moved away, I no longer kept in touch with the girls. My dad continued to get his hair cut in Rolla, though, because he loved his barber. On those Thursdays every other month, he would schedule his hair cut on the same day and time as Jim. This is how they got to see each other even though they had busy schedules with work and family.

Jim's name would come up from time to time in conversation, and I would wonder what ever happened to those girls I used to play with. I wondered what they were doing, and I wondered if they would remember me.

Then arrived the magic of facebook.

One day I saw that a girl had posted a comment on a picture of a mutual friend, and since her maiden name was listed, I decided to send her a message. It was something like this:

Hey Erin, I know this is totally random, but I noticed your maiden name is Ramsey. Are you by chance Jim Ramsey's daughter? This is Bill V's daughter. I hope you remember me.

She replied with the sweetest message. She said she did remember me, she was Jim's youngest, and she sent my message to her sister, Maegan, asking if she remembered. What I didn't realize was that I was seeing Maegan every Tuesday and Thursday at Caleb's preschool! She had a daughter who also attended there, but I didn't even realize it.

Of course we added each other on facebook and have been keeping in touch for about two years now. We've joked about this and that, but we've also shared about more serious things like parenting, our faith, and our families.

And on Saturday, Maegan and I were finally able to spend time together in real life.

I wondered what it would be like. Our personalities seemed so similar when we would send each other messages or chat. Even on the phone it seemed like I'd always known her - I guess technically I always have! And our road trip - 3 hours down and 3 hours back - seemed like I was talking to a friend that I had talked to every day since I was 12. We had fun, and it was really nice to connect with not only that little girl that I used to know, but connect with another Christian mother who has the same vision for her children and her family.

Thanks, Maegan, for being a Godly woman that I can turn to. I loved our trip together.

And Erin, I loved seeing you, too. I look forward to seeing you again sometime soon, maybe when you come up to visit!