Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. Co-hosts for the January 8 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Beth Camp, Natalie @ Literary Rambles and me! For links to all contributors, click here.
This month’s optional question: Describe someone you admired
when you were a child. Did your opinion of that person change when you grew up?
The summer I turned sixteen, I spent two months living with my best friend who’d moved one state over when her father purchased a country inn. Looking back on it, I think she was having trouble settling and her parents imported me to help with that. Whatever. We missed each other like crazy and the plan was we'd both waitress in the inn dining room while having the summer together.
Starting my first paying job in a town where I knew no one but my friend was a bold step for shy me. After my first breakfast shift answering to a barking cook who had zero patience for a scared teenager, I climbed the stairs ready to flop on my bed for a good cry. But in the hall in front of my room, which happened to be next to the laundry area, I encountered a freckle-faced woman holding a bundle of sheets. Her face broke out into a welcoming smile and she greeted me by name, as if she'd been waiting to meet me. I have no idea if she recognized how miserable I was, but if someone asked me to describe an experience representing kindness, it would be that moment.
Kitty was a sort of Jill-of-all-trades around the inn and meeting
her was the first thing that gave me comfort during those early awkward days
away from home. Every time I saw her she offered me that same brilliant smile. Ultimately and regardless of a fifteen-year age
difference, the two of us became friends.
I spent two summers working at the inn and afterwards became a prolific
letter writer to folks I met there. Even then I expressed myself better in writing, and foremost and especially, I wrote to Kitty.
She rarely wrote back but called on the phone and reached out to me when she
was in my area. She invited me to her home on many occasions where we picked
blueberries and blackberries in her yard. She and a friend traveled to see me
when I was in college in Vermont, and after I graduated, she visited when I
worked my last “summer job” on Martha’s Vineyard. We went to lunch when she’d
come for appointments while I was employed in the city, and I remember being
tickled when she commented about how grown up and professional I looked. The day after
Christmas one year, I brought the man who ultimately became my husband up to
meet her. Years later, after training as a nurse, she quizzed me when my young daughter
and I visited her and she learned I’d had serious surgery.
And then, as it is wont to do, life happened. A full-time
working Mom, I crammed my daughter’s activities, home management, and family demands into the precious little free time I had. Letter-writing (or
emailing at that point) landed lower on the priority scale and my regular communication with Kitty petered
out. But always, I made sure to write a detailed Christmas letter, and most
years, I got a long one back. Though I hadn’t spoken to her for longer than I
care to remember, there’s Facebook, and when she discovered I’d lost my husband
she called, telling me how even though we’d reached the ages we had, she’d
always consider me her “little friend.”
I keep the silver bracelet she gave me for my seventeenth
birthday in my jewelry box. I carefully hand wash the one wine glass remaining
from a picnic set she sent as a wedding present, thinking of my dear friend
every time I use it. These days, I’ve whittled what used to be an extensive Christmas
card list down to three, but as always, the first one I wrote this year was to
Kitty.
It’s been fifty years since that first summer I encountered her
in the hallway, but even now, I think of her smile when I greet people, trying
to replicate it with a warmth that starts in my eyes. I know I wore it on my
face when I checked my mailbox last week and found her Christmas card inside.
Who had an impact on your life growing up?
