Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Secret Handshakes, Treehouses and My First Day of Kindergarten

When I was about to 4 years and 11 months old, my family moved from Kansas to Ohio.  I was devastated, because my birthday was in ONE MONTH and I wasn't going to have any friends to invite to my party (Note: I don't think I actually cared about having friends per se, but I just knew that birthday parties were supposed to be lots of kids).   I was so devastated.  My little 4 year old world was ruined.

I've heard different versions of the story, but Michelle Bruno either invited herself to my party, or was coaxed by our mothers to be nice to me- but either way she showed up at my 5th birthday party, and we were pretty much inseperable from that point on.  We made up secret handshakes with a million different meanings- "Best friends", "I'll never tell your secret",  "I was a jerk and I'm sorry".  We climbed a tree that we thought was a pirate ship.  We had a secret club, whose sole purpose was to be as cool as our older sisters who had their own secret club. We had sleepovers, but we didn't play 'house'-  we played 'Russian immigrants' (what?!).  We went to camp together and told semi-scary ghost stories.  We ended up in Chicago together for college and shared a whole different kind of secrets and stories and games.

First day of kindergarten





Together again in college

Visiting me in Boston at Fenway
Anyway, recently-renamed Mrs. DiFranco, is my favorite person in the world.  I love that EVERY memory from my childhood has her in it.  I love that we are still as thick as thieves, and I love that I got to stand up next to her last weekend as she married her new best friend. She got married this past weekend, and it was the most BEAUTIFUL wedding ever!!   Here's my favorite picture from the night, and there's more in the slideshow in my last post



2 comments:

  1. Okay - as if I couldn't stop crying now AFTER the wedding, I just keep finding reasons to cry. Shelli was NOT coerced into coming to your party and there were several girls there. I also love how all of our memories of the girls are combined with the Grimmers. FYI - Shelli and Joey are okay. She just sent an email that the hurricane has passed and they may even have sun by tomorrow. They never even lost power! I think I need to do a picture collage of those 3 pictures!

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