Re-connecting with a old friend
09 Jun 2009 Leave a Comment
It amazes me now as a mother, just how much people and situations in a child’s life can affect them. Even at a early age, people (outside their families) that children form relationships with help them to form the values and beliefs that they will hold onto for the rest of their lives. There are times when the values and beliefs learn through these relationships can even outweigh those taught at home.
Last night I was finally able to re-connect with a old friend of mine from middle school. Sherrie was my very best friend, and my first friend that was of another race than I. As most of you know I grew up in a home full of prejudice and bigotry. Being able to befriend someone who belong to a race I had heard nothing but bad about taught me a lot and helped to place my feet firmly on the road that I am on today. This was one of the reasons this relationship was so very important to me and one of the reasons why I wanted to find Sherrie so much.
She introduced me to the music of Michael Jackson, I remember going to school both of us so excited after seeing him on the Motown 25 special and the now famous performance he did of “Billie Jean”. Of course since I was not allowed to listen to any music at that time besides country music, by the time I had finally sneaked around and heard “Billie Jean” on the radio, Sherrie had let me know the Michael had a new song out! Some of you might also know that my fascination with Michael Jackson (Don’t judge at the time the whole world was fascinated with Michael) led me to decide to be a vegetarian after reading in the latest issue of Tiger Beat that Michael was, I had to be one as well! LOL
We suffered through 8Th grade Science with Ms. Grice, 7Th grade math with Ms. Drake and I can not forget the Science teacher name we had in 7Th grade (because he was nice!) and listen to each of tales of woe about our parents and others teen age troubles.
When I heard her on the phone last night I was so excited! Like a child at Christmas. Sherrie lives in Atlanta, and works for Delta Airlines, a very exciting career! She is able to travel around the country. She has six nieces which she shared with me she spends a lot of time with. She also lost her mother about five years ago. Now that we are adults we were able to realize that our tales of woe were not as bad as they seemed when we were younger.
I look forward to keeping in touch with Sherrie now that we were about to find each other again! My relationship with her was one of the most important to me growing up and I hope not to lose it again.
