What Does It Look Like? - Working Friendships (Part Deux)

What Does It Look Like? - Working Friendships (Part Deux)

EVERY TWO MONTHS, I heard the sidesplitting laughter during those Forty-Two matches when one of the gals told a joke. Even if it wasn’t funny or they had just heard it two weeks before, they roared with laughter. I saw the twinkle in their eyes as they ribbed a partner who had made a bad play, but I don’t remember ever hearing anything that resembled sarcasm or ridicule.

I remember hearing them celebrate for one another, and their families, at a simple life win. There wasn’t a self-centered one in the bunch; each of these women expressed great interest in the lives of others.

And you can imagine that nine women meeting together twenty-six times a year for twenty-five years (including the years they were going through menopause) had to do a whole lot of forgiving and forgetting.

I watched them age—the salt and pepper turning all salt; the buttermilk skin slowly becoming etched with beautiful laugh lines. But it didn’t matter to the Forty-Two Club. What they looked like was never the issue, because who they were was the point.

Over the years, canes and walkers became their companions to the event. As I grew older, I saw them comfort one another as they attended funerals together; first husbands, then—one by one—the members of the Forty-Two Club themselves. They are all gone now, but their legacy lives on.

My girlfriends and I don’t play Forty-Two (although if one of them has her way, we’re going to have game night!), and if we’re gray, you’ll never know it. As long as Avalon Salon is open, most of us will die blonde. But we will be women of purpose and character; we will be women who laugh, celebrate, banter, and mourn with one another. And like the Forty-Two Club, we will forgive and move on. And we will age. Together.

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

And that’s what I want Ava to see: a network of girlfriends—that works. And how to make a lemon icebox pie.