Old Friends

One of my dear friends who moved to Arizona over 15 years ago came to Philly last week to visit her mom. This led to a gathering at my house of four girlfriends who go way back, three spouses, and one  delicious Chinese food meal.

Two of these girlfriends are grandmas and two have engaged kids, so that right there is a lot to talk about, although we’ve never run out of subject matter, e v e r.  

We all congratulated the girlfriends on the engagements and began to talk about potential wedding plans for their kids but, before long, the conversation shifted to when WE were kids and got married. Can old friends ever get together and NOT talk about the old days?  I hope not!

In the midst of all the chatter, one of the girlfriends had a flashback of another friend (not in attendance) who was a bridesmaid in one of our weddings and transformed discarded fabric from the alterations process to wear as a ribbon in her hair – a very ingenious plan, we all agreed then – and now.

She also had a vague recollection of a lavender color for the dress and matching ribbon, and although these memories of hers sounded familiar, my thinking about them was foggy. We also haven’t seen ribbon girl in decades, so there hasn’t been any reminiscing with her or about this for a very long time.

Flashback girlfriend was pretty sure that ribbon girl made her stylish mark at MY wedding – my first wedding – but another of the dinner girlfriends didn’t think that was the case, wondering if ribbon girl and I weren’t friends during that time period.

It was up to me to break the tie, but I couldn’t. Was ribbon girl in my wedding, or someone else’s? Did my bridesmaids wear pink, lavender, or a different color?

I have tons of pictures with all these girls although not many of us at our weddings...but, then again, we didn't have smart phones some 45 years ago to snap a picture quickly, just disposable cameras at the tables.    

So how would we ever figure out the answers to these pressing questions? Then it dawned on me…there was a way we could know for sure.

I turned to David and asked if he’d be OK if I took out my OLD wedding album. As I expected, he said he didn’t care.

The men seemed shocked that I still had it, but the women got it. It is too important in the history of my life and my kids’ lives to dispose of this album just because the marriage didn’t work out. One day, my kids may appreciate seeing their parents so young, at their own wedding, with grandparents, a great grandmother, aunts and uncles, and lots of friends. But if not – and they don’t want it, because everyone says our kids don’t want our things – they can toss it.  

After flipping a couple pages, I had my answers.  

Ribbon girl WAS in my wedding!

And all the bridesmaids – other than my sister, who was my maid of honor – wore a lovely dusty rose/mauve gown.    

Dinner with my girlfriends was one of the highlights of my summer so far, and it reminded me of this  quote: “You can’t make old friends.”