Dixie and Me

Dixie and I literally grew up together. She was with me as long as I can remember.

We were more like sisters than friends and we played like sisters, grew up like

sisters and fought like sisters!

When we were kids, we used to love to go to the park and tell the other kids

we were twins (looked NOTHING alike) and that we were from France.

We had the younger ones buffaloed even though we had the worst French accents

you have ever heard, but we would laugh and keep up our game for hours.

Dixie’s father and my father’s brother were best friends. Both had been

lost before either Dixie or I were born, Dixie was born a few months

after her father passed away, and my uncle had died in his late teens,

but my father loved Dixie as one of his own and still does. He gave

her away at her wedding and I think that there is a mutual admiration

society there that will last for a lifetime. She calls my parents, Mom and Dad

sometimes and they adore her.

When we were in our teens, we were inseparable spending lots of nights

at each other houses and even double dated a few times. We went to the

same church and were involved in the youth program at church together.

When we were in high school, we had a music teacher with a particularly

unusual singing voice. That same teacher was, for a time, the choir director

at our church. When I had my driver’s license (I got mine before Dixie

did as I am about 4 months older) we used to love to take my grandmother’s

car out for a drive in the country. We would turn up the radio, roll down the

windows and sing like that teacher/choir director at the top of our voices.

We shared everything in our lives. We dreamed of boys together, talked

on the phone for hours even after we had just spent the night at one or the

other’s homes and laughed our backsides off at special secrets only best

friends share.

We sneaked our first cigarette together, our first sip of alcohol together

and cried on each other’s shoulders when a boyfriend relationship went

wrong.

As we grew and married, we were there for the births of each other’s children

and there for each other through some really tough times. When I had to have

a surgical procedure, hers was the first face I saw when I was coming out of

the anesthetic and I think I was the one she saw under similar circumstances

a few years later.

Nearly two years ago now, Dixie experienced a tragedy in her life that few

have to endure. She lost her only daughter in an devastating automobile

accident. Though I had moved away from our home town and we had grown

apart in many ways, when the news came, I took off immediately in the middle

of the night, still in my pajamas to be with her.

The sadness and shock of losing a child is more than anyone should have to

endure. She handled it with a grace and dignity that made me very proud to

know her. She still hurts more than anyone can imagine, but she is strong and

she has taken the opportunity to share her experience and grief in a way that

is helping others because she became involved in a support group where people

who have experienced that kind of grief can gain strength and insight from each

other.

She made some new friends in that group and I know from the headers on her

emails that she is very faithful in keeping in touch with them.

I love you Dixie! I wish everyone could know what it is like to know you.

On my poetry page, there is a poem dedicated to the memory of Dixie’s

daughter, “Angie’s Garden”. I hope you will take a moment to read it.

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