I met Michelle the summer after my first grade year. I was at the YMCA in Thomasville with a friend, and Michelle was there with her cousin. They introduced themselves to us, and we played together for the next hour while we waited for my friend's mother to take us home. We waved good-bye when we left, explaining to my friend's mom that the girls were our new friends. I didn't expect to ever see them again.
A few months later, on the first day of school, I noticed a new girl with long blonde hair. I noticed her right away because she had on a pretty yellow dress. She asked me if I remembered her, and as soon as she spoke, I knew she was the girl I had met over the summer at the YMCA. We sat together at lunch that day. And so our friendship began.
Michelle was the oldest of three kids; I was the middle of five. We both had blonde hair. We both loved to sing. And we were both Daddy's girls.
We soon became inseparable. We did everything together from basketball and Girl Scouts, to softball and clogging. We had so much fun together. We sang songs together. We wrote songs together. We watched movies together. We made movies together. We took pictures together. We picked out clothes together. We played together. We laughed together. We spent most every weekend at each other's house, to the point our parents joked that we were joined at the hip.
Most of the time when we were together, we played some version of house. We pretended we were grown-up and married (She was married to Donnie Wahlberg; I was married to Joey McIntyre), with lots of children, and we raised our children together. That's how we figured our lives would turn out, and we could not wait to grow up!
I have very few childhood memories without Michelle in them. She was my B.B.F.F.E. (best best friend for ever). I was her B.B.F.F.E. And as little girls always imagine, I thought we'd be friends forever.
Unfortunately, life sometimes throws curve balls. Sometimes those curve balls hit a window, shattering the glass. Sometimes what breaks is beyond repair, and you just have to throw it away.
That's what happened with Michelle and me. Life threw a curve ball that hit Michelle's family causing irreparable damage. Michelle's father died the summer after our seventh grade year. And Michelle was never the same.
I will never forget the day her father died. My mom picked Michelle up and brought her back to our house. As they were pulling in the driveway, I remember telling my sister, "I don't know what to say. What am I supposed to say?"
It turns out, I didn't have to say anything. Michelle got out of the car. We ran to each other and held onto each other for dear life. We cried together. Actually, we sobbed together. We both felt her loss, and neither one of us knew why it happened or what to do now. I cry even as I sit here remembering. It was an awful day.
You'd think surviving her father's death together would bond us for life. In fact, it did the opposite. Rather than strengthen our friendship, the time we spent together after that seemed to magnify our differences. I became the smart one, and Michelle became the pretty one. Our wants, our needs, our interests and our families led us in completely opposite directions.
I remember being so heartbroken as I realized what was happening to us. I remember feeling hurt because I felt like Michelle was growing up and I was being left behind. I remember feeling guilty because she was growing up, and I wasn't ready to. I remember feeling angry at her father for doing this to us. I remember feeling sad because our future didn't hold for us the conjoined lives we'd always imagined - a lifelong friendship - being in each other's wedding - being pregnant at the same time - our kids playing together - growing old together.
We no longer wanted to go the same places, to do the same things or to be the same people. We weren't together anymore.
The rope of friendship that had once joined us at the hip became unraveled, until we both just let it go...
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Michelle and I saw each other sporadically after that. We'd run into each other every now and then. But we never felt compelled to speak for more than a few minutes. She didn't come to my wedding. I didn't go to her baby shower. We didn't call each other, or even send Christmas cards.
Our childhood selves would be shocked and disappointed at just how separate our lives had become.
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But that's not the end of our story.
We thought we were done with each other.
But God wasn't done with us yet... :)
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