A Day In The Life Of The Numy's : {Friends Forever}

The year was 1988, I was five and I made a friend - Amanda. I remember having a few groups of friends and one of those groups included Amanda. I loved hanging out with Amanda. I remember standing next to her during out spring concert which was held outside the elementary school and we were singing patriotic songs. And for some unknown reason, I looked at her and whispered, "this is so embarrassing." Did even know what embarrassing was? Probably not, but I sure thought I was cool using it in a sentence when I was five. Amanda and I were close all through elementary school and even into the 7th grade, but drifted apart until junior year.

In the 7th grade, I had 3 of my afternoon classes with an extremely shy girl with braces. We slowly became friends because we were both dorky and didn't have any other friends in the classes. As it turned out, our dads knew each other, so that kind of opened a door for us to become closer. We really bonded on a field trip to Tunnel Park before school got out for the summer. I still remember her not wanting to drink out of the drinking fountain because of the germs. I really thought she was going to pass out from dehydration! This girls name was Katie.

After talking more and more each day, I learned that she was friends with a girl that I had met on the first day of 7th grade. I literally can remember the moment I met Chelsea. She was wearing black, velvet-ish overalls on a day when the temperature was like 90+ in a school with no air conditioning. Thankfully our last names were close to one another (oddly enough, they are still close and we are both married) and we were assigned seats just two apart. We soon became friends and started hanging out with Katie.

Thankfully Katie introduced us to her friend Amy. And Amy was fun! I remember meeting her at Katie's 13th birthday party and I knew instantly that I wanted to become her friend. In the 9th grade, we met Michelle's neighbor two doors down - Michelle. A lot of my teenage memories are of us girls walking down the road between those houses, drinking tea and dancing to rap music. We even made some crazy videos of us being "us" and I could watch them over and over. Man, us girls had some good times.

Fast forward to the middle of sophomore year of high school. Me, Katie, Chelsea & Michelle were the best of friends, but we noticed a new girl in the cafeteria - and she looked like a foreign exchange student...from Germany. But she wasn't from Germany, she was just from Detroit. Her name was Melissa and she was hilarious. We were all so sheltered living in West Michigan our entire lives and Melissa was so different from us, and we loved that about her.

We have all grown up and done our own things, but I am happy to say that we are all still friends. This past week, tragedy struck one of my friends. I think I am still in a state of shock as I know her family is too. There is not much I can do for her or her family from 2000+ miles away, but seeing my friends come together to provide meals, support, hugs & whatever else the family needs was so incredibly moving! I know God brought all of us girls together for a reason and I'm so glad that I have these girls in my life! Not many people can say they have the same best friends they had during childhood/adolescence, but I can :)