Isn’t it funny how certain sounds can bring memories rushing
back? A certain smell or sound can hand you a memory you’d long forgotten. Sometimes
the funniest, most random things jolt a memory for me. Here’s one of those
random things.
I met my best friend when I was about 8 years old. She was a
missionary kid from Denmark and her family came to our mission in Africa when
we were both in about 3rd grade. Ellie is the opposite of me in many
ways: she is slender, graceful, and blonde. She has the best laugh in the
world. She is hilarious, generous, and has such a sensitive, good spirit. She
makes the world brighter everywhere she goes. She is an inspiration, she is
courageous, she is amazing. She’s still my best friend.
Ellie lives about a trillion miles away from where I do now.
We have very separate lives. We rarely see each other, rarely communicate other
than the occasional email or facebook post because when it is evening where
Ellie is and there is peace at her house, my house is bustling with Kid Energy
and noise- homework, after school activities, friends in the backyard.
But there is something between good friends that is just
there, it never changes. I think about Ellie all the time. I wonder how her
family is, what she is doing right now…and I know that whenever we see each
other again, we will pick up right where we left off a couple years ago when we
got together. There’s something magical about a friend like Ellie. No matter
how much time or distance is between us, we just are meant to be friends, and
that’s the way it will always be.
Our time together in Africa, at boarding school especially,
will always tie us together. When I think of my childhood, Ellie is a huge part
of it. She is in most of my memories. I remember when she first came to our
mission, she didn’t speak much English and I certainly didn’t speak any Danish,
but we were meant to be kindred spirits and we made it work. We used to sit in
the tree out by the clothesline, seeking refuge from the hot Sahara sun, and
sing all the songs we knew. I’m sure everyone in a 2-mile radius appreciated
that. We made up our own language. We traded stickers. We got each other
through homesickness and childhood scrapes. We were, and are, sisters. We have
so much in common, as far as personality and soul, there was surely a reason we
were put together on the African continent so many years ago.
I go to the chiropractor a couple times a month for help with
chronic neck and shoulder pain (due to stress- can’t imagine why I’d have any
stress in my life!). My favorite massage therapist looks a lot like Ellie. She
is from Europe, and is petite and blonde. And she has fingers of steel that
untwist all my pain. But the thing I love about her most is the sound she makes
when she swallows. Whenever she swallows, it’s just like Ellie is right there
with me, because it sounds exactly like Ellie’s swallow. These two little women
do not make crazy-loud-hippopotamus swallow sounds, by any means. But there is
something about the way they both delicately swallow that is identical. So
every time I see this massage therapist, I not only have my pain taken away
physically, but I also feel close to Ellie during that 45 minutes because I
close my eyes, remember the sound of being with her, and think about all our
amazing memories.
Isn’t that funny? That the way someone swallows can bring me
back to all my memories with my best friend. It comforts me that I can find a
time and place to hold Ellie close to my heart. A time and place where my best
friend doesn’t seem so far away.
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