“We’re gonna be friends forever!”
I spoke these words to my friend Lois the first time I visited her home. She had grown up on a farm with her seven siblings and had developed a real talent for baking. On this day we went to her house and she asked me to sample a new recipe she was trying. It was a Ho Ho cake. A giant Ho Ho with cream filling and chocolate ganache spread all over it. It was the best thing I had ever put in my mouth. “We’re gonna be friends forever” I quipped with my mouth full of chocolate. That was the start of a 35 year friendship.
Lois and I were very different. She grew up on a working dairy farm and I grew up in the city. I went to college, but Lois was imbued with remarkable common sense and the best work ethic I had ever seen. I had one sibling; she had two brothers and five sisters.
She was the hardest worker I ever met. Now I have my own talents and gifts, but most of the time I am useless. I am the person at an event who can’t figure out how to help or what to do, but Lois was like a whirlwind. She was the person that you wanted at a party or any large event. She was always the first to arrive with food and the last one to leave once all the dishes were done. She did it all with a smile on her face (and often a rum and diet coke next to the sink!)
When my mom passed away, Lois and her family provided all of the desserts for the funeral luncheon. I’m not talking store-bought cookies, I’m talking oodles of homemade treats baked with love! Everyone present had a dessert plate that featured at least three of these delicacies.
When one of my children was hospitalized for a month, Lois was the first one to volunteer to make sure my other child was busy and cared for. She was the first one to visit me and take me to lunch. Hers was the first shoulder I cried on, first with sorrow and later with relief.
Hers was always the first Christmas card to arrive and the first birthday gift that you opened. She loved sentimental things. I have wooden signs and knick knacks all over my house that were gifts from her. All of them tout the special love and bond between friends, like “A friend is someone who knows who you are and loves you anyway”.
As the years went on, we became part of each others’ families. I officiated at more than half a dozen weddings and spoke or sang at nearly as many funerals for her large clan. I often thought of the first time I saw her. I was just out of college applying for a job where she worked as a waitress. I sat in a back booth, filling out my application while Lois waited on a table of four just behind me. The customers were done with their meal and she was asking about dessert. With her natural gift of gab (and the exemplary gift of salesmanship that made her such an extraordinary waitress), she talked about learning baking with her sisters at the family farm. She extolled the wonders of the restaurant's dessert offerings and not surprisingly, everyone at the table ordered pie! (She could do the same with appetizers and rounds of drinks. You always spent more than you intended when Lois was your server, but you never regretted it.)
In 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, Lois passed away in her sleep, just a few weeks short of her 57th birthday. When her husband called to tell me, I could not even process the information. Because of the COVID-19 virus, a funeral service for Lois that normally would have had hundreds of friends and family members in attendance was a very small somber affair with only immediate family members and a video camera recording as we honored her. We will celebrate her life in a few months when the world returns to our new normal, but it will not be the same as coming together immediately in shock and grief and comforting one another over a shared loss.
When I leave my house to mingle with the outside world again, I will be happy, but it won’t be the same without Lois. We started out as single gals and went through two marriages (one each) and the birth of four sons (two each) all the way through the aches and pains of middle age (many each). I wasn’t done being friends with Lois. I thought we would have more time. So I guess in a way, we were friends forever.
I spoke these words to my friend Lois the first time I visited her home. She had grown up on a farm with her seven siblings and had developed a real talent for baking. On this day we went to her house and she asked me to sample a new recipe she was trying. It was a Ho Ho cake. A giant Ho Ho with cream filling and chocolate ganache spread all over it. It was the best thing I had ever put in my mouth. “We’re gonna be friends forever” I quipped with my mouth full of chocolate. That was the start of a 35 year friendship.
Lois and I were very different. She grew up on a working dairy farm and I grew up in the city. I went to college, but Lois was imbued with remarkable common sense and the best work ethic I had ever seen. I had one sibling; she had two brothers and five sisters.
She was the hardest worker I ever met. Now I have my own talents and gifts, but most of the time I am useless. I am the person at an event who can’t figure out how to help or what to do, but Lois was like a whirlwind. She was the person that you wanted at a party or any large event. She was always the first to arrive with food and the last one to leave once all the dishes were done. She did it all with a smile on her face (and often a rum and diet coke next to the sink!)
When my mom passed away, Lois and her family provided all of the desserts for the funeral luncheon. I’m not talking store-bought cookies, I’m talking oodles of homemade treats baked with love! Everyone present had a dessert plate that featured at least three of these delicacies.
When one of my children was hospitalized for a month, Lois was the first one to volunteer to make sure my other child was busy and cared for. She was the first one to visit me and take me to lunch. Hers was the first shoulder I cried on, first with sorrow and later with relief.
Hers was always the first Christmas card to arrive and the first birthday gift that you opened. She loved sentimental things. I have wooden signs and knick knacks all over my house that were gifts from her. All of them tout the special love and bond between friends, like “A friend is someone who knows who you are and loves you anyway”.
As the years went on, we became part of each others’ families. I officiated at more than half a dozen weddings and spoke or sang at nearly as many funerals for her large clan. I often thought of the first time I saw her. I was just out of college applying for a job where she worked as a waitress. I sat in a back booth, filling out my application while Lois waited on a table of four just behind me. The customers were done with their meal and she was asking about dessert. With her natural gift of gab (and the exemplary gift of salesmanship that made her such an extraordinary waitress), she talked about learning baking with her sisters at the family farm. She extolled the wonders of the restaurant's dessert offerings and not surprisingly, everyone at the table ordered pie! (She could do the same with appetizers and rounds of drinks. You always spent more than you intended when Lois was your server, but you never regretted it.)
In 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, Lois passed away in her sleep, just a few weeks short of her 57th birthday. When her husband called to tell me, I could not even process the information. Because of the COVID-19 virus, a funeral service for Lois that normally would have had hundreds of friends and family members in attendance was a very small somber affair with only immediate family members and a video camera recording as we honored her. We will celebrate her life in a few months when the world returns to our new normal, but it will not be the same as coming together immediately in shock and grief and comforting one another over a shared loss.
When I leave my house to mingle with the outside world again, I will be happy, but it won’t be the same without Lois. We started out as single gals and went through two marriages (one each) and the birth of four sons (two each) all the way through the aches and pains of middle age (many each). I wasn’t done being friends with Lois. I thought we would have more time. So I guess in a way, we were friends forever.
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