by Brenda Mckinney

Created on: April 26, 2009

I Remember Rhonda

There is something to be said about friendship. Two people can be separated by time and space; and, if the fates provide, their paths will cross again. I know because it happened to me.

I lost touch with my childhood friend when we were in junior high school; her family moved away. They didn't move far; she was still in the same city. But she might as well have moved to another state. We tried to keep in touch by phone but that didn't last. She had new friends and so did I.

We were best friends in a time when that kind of friendship was rare. She was white and I am black; and it was the 50's. We actually lived on the same street five or six blocks apart. But, she lived behind a storefront in the business district of our neighborhood and I lived in a house with three bedrooms and a large backyard. Typically the roles would have been reversed. I'm sure it mattered to someone back then, but not to us. And, thank goodness, not our parents.

We had a routine of going to Art's Chili Kitchen at lunch to get two of the best coneys in the world. (They were two for a dollar.) We'd stand at the counter, barely tall enough to see our orders being made. And, we'd run in different directions to our homes to eat our savory lunches and to meet up again on the playground. Years passed and elementary school became junior high.

Then, Rhonda was gone. I missed my friend and hoped she was happy. I wondered about her for years. The years became decades; and, she and our friendship became a distant memory. That is until 2007.

I started a new job at an oncology practice. I smiled at the patient's, made them laugh and got close to some. But there was one woman. There was something familiar about her. Could it be? She was the right age and her name was the same as my long lost friend, Rhonda. No, it couldn't be. The world is not that small.

I put the idea out of my head. But, one day when she and her husband were at my desk and no one was around I decided to broach the question. I said. "when I was young I had a friend named Rhonda that moved away and I lost touch with her.' She said "what school did you go to?" I said, "Madisonville Elementary". She said "I went to Madisonville Elementary. Brenda! You're Brenda." It was Rhonda, my Rhonda. We hugged, laughed and cried. People looked at us like we were crazy. It had been almost forty five years since we had seen each other. She had wondered about me just as I had about her.

After that, every time she came to the office we talked and got caught up on what had happened in her life and mine. We eased back into the way we were together. Smiles and winks; and, then she was gone again.

You see my friend had been battling breast cancer for more than five years. She had been in remission and now it was back. One day as I sat with her while she was being infused with the terrible toxins they used to try to save her, she told me she was done. The doctor had told her that there was nothing else to do. She did not want to continue the chemo treatments that were making her sicker than the disease.

My friend died shortly after that. She was too young; only fifty-eight. She had the love of her husband, parents, other relatives, friends; and me; the friend whom she had lost but found in time to say good-bye one last time.

I remember Rhonda and I always will.

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