Friends. Take two.

While we’re on the subject of friends, let me introduce you to Natalie.    Natalie and I are the unlikeliest of friends.  We met about 15 years ago when she interviewed for a job at the association where I worked.  Though about 17 years younger and several rungs higher up on the corporate ladder than me, we hit it off immediately when we realized we had a profound bond:  Trixie Belden.  If you aren’t familiar with Trixie, it’s because you are either much younger than me, a male and/or you had a childhood rooted firmly in reality.  Trixie was a cross between Nancy Drew and Spin & Marty. The series of books in which she and her intrepid sidekick Honey featured made perfect summer reading material from about 9 to 12 years old. 

Anyway…  when Nat walked into my cubicle for paperwork that day, I looked up and saw… Trixie.  All curly hair and a few freckles and clear blue eyes and I just blurted out, “boy, you remind me of Trixie Belden.”  Of course, I never expected this kid to have a clue as to what I was talking about but, whoa, baby, her eyes lit up and she said, “I LOVE Trixie Belden!!!”  And our friendship was off and running.

She left her job to freelance and, later, moved to Colorado and became an earth-mother gluten-free hard-body hiking-skiing-natural-everything mom of two and I morphed into a freelance overweight diet-coke-drinking grandmother.  And yet, it works.

And, aside from a mutual love of Trixie Belden, here’s another reason why:

In 2001, I lost my sister, Jackie, who was also my best friend.  Two months later the hub and I went to Scotland to stay in a B&B that Jackie and I had stayed in the previous year on what turned out to be our last trip abroad together.  This would be a hard trip, but one that Jackie wanted me to make.  When I arrived and was shown to my room, there was a vase full of beautiful white roses and a card.  Natalie had tracked down the B&B in Edinburgh, called the owner and arranged for her to get flowers for the room and a card to remind me that this trip could be a beautiful, healing experience.  And it was.  I mean, come on, would you not cherish a friend like that?

Nat comes back to Ohio once a year to visit friends and family (her grandfather is 99, for cripe’s sake) and we have our annual early morning breakfast of mushrooms and poached eggs at First Watch.  And we talk.  And talk.  And talk.  Even though we stay in touch via email, the talk is non-stop for at least two hours.   Then it’s a hug in the parking lot and she’s gone for another year.

I bet if you think about it, you have a friend like Natalie.  Give her a call or give her a hug.   And ask her if she’s ever heard of Trixie Belden.