She was 10 and I was 11 the first day we met.
She sat right behind me in Mr. Engelbright’s 6th grade English class. It was the awkward, intimidating first day of middle school. The day insecure pre-teens tightly clutch books to their chest and cluster into groups, hoping they won’t have to sit alone at lunch time.
That morning I dressed in my brand new back-to-school purple corduroy bell bottoms. Though I thought I looked totally cool, the pictures my mom always took on the first day of school reveal otherwise. Coiffed with a short pixie cut instead of a groovy long flowing mane like Farrah, I had just moved to town and didn’t know a soul. When Mr. Engelbright called my name, she answered too.
We are both named Donna Ann. In a weird series of similarities, we learned that we were both named after our fathers (Don) and our mothers, whose middle names are Ann. We both have one sister and one brother and when we grew up we both married men whose names are John.
I know. I know. Totally bizarre.
But from the first day of 6th grade through the last day of 9th grade Donna Ann Hutchison was my other half.
She now lives in Texas and I live in California, but all these years later we still call one another every June 15th and every October 5th – our birthdays.
What do I remember about those years together? Well, of course I recall the countless sleepovers, the batches and batches of homemade chocolate chip cookies, the secrets we shared and the boys we liked. I remember pouring over fashion magazines together and one day reading about how to make a homemade oatmeal honey mask. At about 11pm we whipped up a batch of the oatmeal mask, spread it over our faces and went on a run around her neighborhood to work off all the calories we had consumed earlier that evening from stuffing ourselves with our infamous homemade cookies.
I still remember the sticky oatmeal coming off in sweat filled clumps as we circled her neighborhood in our quest to be the two prettiest girls at Stillwater High.
But what I remember most is how she loved me unconditionally.
With Donna there was never the competitive, catty, drama-filled friendship so many girls endure. Only once did a smidge of jealousy rear it’s ugly head. I remember her candid frankness about it all. “I’m just a little jealous of you right now” she said. What refreshing honesty! (and in hindsight – what incredible emotional maturity!) Then we laughed about how silly it was to be jealous of one another, after all. It never entered our relationship again.
I always knew she had my back and she always knew I had hers.
When we found out that my dad had taken a new job in far away California, we laid side by side on her bright pink bedspread, bemoaning my move. Right then and there we decided that someday our heavenly mansions would be next door to one another.
Donna was my first, real, true friend.
She marked the path for all other friendship that would come later in my life. Her friendship set the bar high.
Donna’s friendship did what every friendship should do: make you feel loved as you are and make you better than you are.
A really good friend embraces you with arms opened wide but loves you enough to tell you the truth. She finds your quirks lovable. She believes the best about you. She laughs with you. She cries with you. She prays for you and means it. She’ll never talk behind your back. Because if she does, she doesn’t really love you. A really good friend brings out the best in you. Her friendship makes you a better person.
Donna was the first of many girls that would one day enter my life and be this kind of friend to me. Today I am blessed to have several women in my life who love me and I, them.
Do you have a friend who loves you as you are? Do you have a friend who makes you better than you are?
If you do, make sure you tell her how blessed you are to have her in your life.
If you don’t, stop right now and pray that God would bring this kind of woman into your life. But don’t stop there. While you’re at it, pray that God would make you this kind of friend to someone else.
Dear Lord,
Thank you for the gift of friendship. Please bring women into my life that love me as I am. Bring women into my life that I can have fun with and share life with. Bring me a friend who will encourage me and help me be the kind of woman I really want to be. And Lord, while I am waiting for that kind of friend, help me look around to see women I can love. Women I can encourage. Women I can laugh with and share with and enjoy. Make me the kind of friend others will be thankful they have. Amen.
“A friend loves at all times.” Proverbs 17:17
