The three of us were connected through children and activities, and I probably never would’ve met these three wonderful women if it hadn’t been for our willingness to be the carpool driver or the chaperone on a Scouting or church adventure.
Cindy, Diane and Patty didn’t know each other, but I knew them, and they have positively impacted my life. We weren’t what the dictionary would define as close friends, but our paths crossed many times over the past 20 years.
We were usually in a rush, hurrying children in and out of mini-vans, on our way to the next sporting event or after-school activity.
With three boys, Cindy Zerwas and I swapped stories of life in a house of guys, including finding out our boys thought it would be an adventure to jump out of windows onto mattresses on the front lawn.
Patty Bishop has three daughters so our daily routines were quite different – hers was pink bows and music lessons and mine was stinky sneakers and baseball practice.
Diane Uhlig is the mom of three boys, and we swapped stories of living in a wild house where noise and basketballs were constant companions. We also shared the fretting over helping our boys pack for a summer Scouting trip to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota.
I often take those types of seasonal friendships for granted, thinking those quick conversations aren’t memory makers.
But looking back, the friends I saw occasionally added so much to my life because they marked milestones, causing me to realize how quickly time was speeding past.
An encounter in the grocery store with these women put me into fast forward mode, and I’d go back over the past few years into the present tense. I’d find myself going down memory lane, remembering 2-year-old Christopher Uhlig with a sun hat, floaties and a swim ring.
When I heard Danielle Bishop was finishing up college, I couldn’t believe that little girl who played in the church choir with her dad was almost finished with her education. And Cindy Zerwas and I were both grandmothers – hard to believe our rambunctious boys were now mature, grown men.
Reconnecting
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve caught up with their lives through social media. That’s how I found out Patty’s husband, Mike, recently went through a life-saving kidney transplant after waiting months for a donor.
That’s also how I found out Diane’s husband, Dave, is battling pancreatic cancer and that Diane is a breast cancer survivor.
It’s for Cindy, though, that my heart aches. She lost a valiant battle with brain cancer this week, leaving behind dozens of friends, her children, grandchildren, husband and loved ones.
All three faced the hardships in their lives with a brave face, humor and grace. Looking back on our conversations, I realized that’s the same way they handled being a parent. So it was no surprise that through their writings on Facebook, that was how they and their families faced incredibly difficult obstacles.
When we don’t see friends on a regular basis, their bad news hits us like a stone wall. When we walk away, what’s left are snippets – laughter, the pride in their voices when they talked about their children and the promise to see each other soon.
For Cindy, I no longer can keep that promise. But for Patty and Diane, I can.
As much as I treasure friends I see all the time, it’s the seasonal friends who help us recognize the giant milestones in our lives. They are our memory catchers.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.