Fwd: all kinds

NOW SHOWING 

 

Carrie is an angel. It's an absolute delight to be with her. She's  polite, overly so at times, pleasant, helpful, fun. I find her to be a paradigm of a friend. If she gets upset, angry, she hides it well.

 

When I broke my right ankle, Carrie grocery shopped for me, was my chauffeur for weeks. My point is I never asked for her help, didn't even hint at it. When my father passed over, Carrie sat with me and my family during the service, rode in the limousine on the way to the cemetery. Last week she noticed a small red button missing on the blouse I was wearing, went home and scrambled thru an old sewing kit until she found one that looked perfect for my blouse, came over and insisted on sewing it on for me.

 

She, Jane and I got along so well, we bunked together at Raleigh's Ranch for a week's vacation. We were grown up children, trying everything, afraid of nothing. I actually roped a calf on my first try. Jane rode the wooden bucking stallion until she fell off, unhurt and hysterically laughing. What memories we took home.

 

Using her facilitator training, Carrie did volunteer work at Bradford Jr. High. Teens came to her rather than to their mothers. As a special guest, Carrie allowed me to sit in the rear of the room to possibly learn to do what she did. There were no cat calls, no impropriety. Carrie was respected. These girls were troubled about sex, how far to go. Two had already started taking drugs and were afraid they were hooked. Nothing was tabu. The room was a place as warm as a rose garden for them.

 

There wasn't a movie Carrie disliked. She always found good points, beautiful scenes, interesting characters. Sometimes I pictured myself looking for my friend and when I finally find her she is dissolved like sugar in tea.

 

There did come a time, only once, that I could have strangled her. We had a date and she didn't keep it. I was to drive us to D.C. to go thru the  Holocaust Museum. The tickets were in my purse. I arrived at Carrie's house fifteen minutes earlier than she expected me. I rang the bell, I knocked and finally she came to the door, still in her robe and slippers. 'What's wrong?' I asked. 'Are you sick?' She nodded No. Words almost failed me but somehow I managed to chastise her. 'Get dressed. We were leaving early to avoid the heavy traffic.' Carrie looked straight into my eyes and told me she changed her mind, she wasn't going. 'I was only going to please you but decided that wasn't good enough.' My mouth had to be wide open but words were stuck in my throat.

 

Carrie's color had changed to ashen gray. 'Go yourself. I don't give a damn and don't care what happened to the Jews. In fact, I'm on the Pope's side, the one who swears there was never a Holocaust. It never happened. You aren't Jewish, stay home with me and we'll go shopping.'

 

Now words, emotions, poured from my lips. 'It just so happens, Former Friend, that my mother is Jewish and that alone makes me Jewish. And you are an idiot if you deny the millions who suffered and died. Both of my mother's parents went into the ovens. I'm going to the Museum and you can go to Hell.'

 

I drove away, proud of myself and feeling right, despising Miss Goody-Two Shoes from that moment on.