by Rupert Flagg

Created on: June 05, 2009

Sandi is my bestest friend. To be totally honest I actually have three best friends, four if you count Sandi and she is the best of the best. We don't talk on the phone everyday, nor do we see each other more than twice a year, but I can count on her for everything. We live maybe 5 miles from each other and have been friends for a little more than 14 years.

To the best of my remembrance, we've never argued, though we've disagreed on a few things over the years. This friendship is very special to me for many reasons. It surpasses time, ethnicity, age, background and financial status. We are sisters.
My funniest memory of her is of a phone conversation we had in which she was voicing her concern about a conversation she'd had with her mother-in-law. It seemed that her husbands mother was concerned that her grand-daughters weren't being raised African American enough for her. So Sandi, in her way, called to talk to me her oldest friend, to ask for advice - I thought - because I am African American.
Well as the conversation goes on I find that she has called because she sat down after the conversation with her husband's mother and truly gave what she'd said some thought and Sandi was truly shocked that she hadn't any African American friends!
Now, I was just as shocked as she was, 'cuz she was talking to me over the phone. I didn't say anything at first, I just listened as she ask me if it made her a bad person that she didn't have any black friends, just people she saw at church. I told her no it didn't. She asked if I thought her a bad mother. I told her I did not.
And it was at this moment that I heard her husbands voice in the background asking who she was talking to. She replied that it was me. He asked her why she felt like a bad mother and in a few short sentences she told him what his mother had said to her. I heard her hubby began to laugh, great guffaws of laughter that told me he had tears in his eyes. My Sandi, sounding truly distressed, ask him why he was laughing. He didn't answer. He couldn't answer. So she ask me if I understood why he was laughing. I replied through a smile, "Yes, Sandi, I know why he's laughing."
She huffed into the phone and said, "Well, are you going to tell me?" I knew she was getting angry, so I said, "It's because you're talking to me about not having any black friends." She said quickly, "I don't understand why that's so funny! Outside of your husband, do you have any black people in your life?!"

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