Indelible

Studies show that people with pals lead longer, healthier and happier lives. For our group post this month, we’re each sharing thoughts on friendship.

Melissa Howden reflects on the enduring impressions left by friends, real or otherwise.

Cindy Atkins had a long blond ponytail that swung from side to side. Invariably the bow in her hair matched her dress. At six, Cindy Atkins was my first real best friend. During the course of our friendship, which lasted until about third grade, I spent hours trying to coax my curly frizzy hair into a ponytail like Cindy’s. In the bathtub I would lay my head in the water and swish my head back and forth to get the feeling of a swinging ponytail. For a time, while my hair was wet, my ponytail would be smooth and organized like Cindy’s, but then one by one, a frizzy curl would pop out of my tight ponytail, all my effort defeated by nature. Be it for our friendship or her ponytail I have never forgotten Cindy Atkins.

My niece had “imaginary” friends Bobbie and Tay Tay. I knew Bobbie and Tay Tay. I met them. Well, I had conversations with them, through Emily, about their thoughts on a number of different things: Macaroni and Cheese or Grilled Cheese? Seuss or Sendak? Pink or Red? Like that. I think about Bobbie and Tay Tay especially now, in light of the sudden death of The King of Pop. The ways in which celebrities, people we’ve never met, occupy a space of friendship in our lives, seems similar to the friendship Bobbie and Tay Tay offered to Emily in the early years.

Though MJ was not one of my “special friends”, I am mindful of the fact that as my peer he was present for almost as long as I’ve been paying attention. And now he won’t be. In some ways I think we, as a culture are frequently lulled into the false security that our special friends will always be there. When all of the sudden our friends are gone, its startling. So I understand the response of those who have been especially grief stricken by Michael’s untimely death. We grew up with Michael, we saw him through all his changes. We were at turns entertained by him, amused by him, hurt and scared for him, fearful for him, disappointed in and angry at him, but only when and if we chose to be any of those things.

With Bobbie and Tay Tay, their presence was unconditional, they were there when wanted, fully supported Emily’s whims and asked nothing of her offering her their undying devotion. Real friends are a lot more work, and don’t always do what we want them to, but I’d like to think the rewards are greater.

I don’t know. I’m not really making any pronouncements. I am just curious about the phenomenon. I have my own “special” friends. I’ve been undone by the deaths of those I have never known and no doubt I will be again. I have friends on Facebook I hardly “know” in the traditional sense of friendship but I look forward to their updates and pictures nonetheless. Maybe a friend is simply someone who occupies an important space, shapes something and leaves an indelible mark, be it a song and dance, undying devotion, or the most perfect ponytail in the world.

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