A Very Special Friend

When I joined the local chapter of the Red Hat Society, I did so to meet other women and make some friends. Well, I did meet other women and I did make a very unlikely friend.

Sharon and I could not be more different. I grew up in an upper class suburb. A type of bubble existence. My parents shielded me from anything even remotely unpleasant.

My life was filled with going to symphony concerts, the opera (against my will so I got a new dress), the ballet (which I loved then and still do now), shopping trips to New York with my mother you get the picture.

Sharon, on the other hand grew up in a trailer park. Her family was what they call "the working poor". Her father died when she was three. Her mother never had a good thing to say to Sharon and berated her for being deaf. Oh, yes, Sharon is almost totally deaf.

She had a rough and tumble childhood. The kids at school teased her and even beat her up because of her hearing impairment. There was little money for clothes so she never became much of a clotheshorse. She was, well, white trash. I hate to say that but she says she was so I guess it's okay.

Picture this in your mind; two women in their fifties, one has on a dressy pair of flannel slacks and a silk sweater, her hair is a nice shade of dark brown with red highlights, her shoes and purse match, her make-up is subtle, all in all she looks stylish even elegant. Now, the other woman has on jeans and a tee shirt, running shoes, a fanny pack, her hair is unkempt, and there is no make-up subtle or otherwise.

After they had all met Sharon, my grown children said that ours was as close to a pure friendship than they had ever seen. We have nothing in common. I'm well educated. She barely graduated from high school.

Sharon left the Red Hat Society because it was too difficult to keep track of what everyone was saying. We do tend to talk all at once. We're women.

I've often wondered if we would have become friends had she stayed. I sent an e-mail to her saying how sorry I was that she had left before I got to know her. My training as a "well mannered young lady" kicked in and I wrote her a note.

She replied. Shocked the heck out of me! I was being well mannered. And being well mannered, I replied. The e-mails were brief at first and then we started to open up about our past, our present, and what the future might hold.

We moved on to face-to-face meetings usually on Sunday morning. We'd sit at my kitchen table

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