I have to go shopping for a wedding shower gift today. We are going to our first co-ed wedding shower next week. It is for the son and fiancé of my dearest friend in life. I don’t remember when I haven’t known her. I think we have been in each other’s lives since I was about 3, and she 4. She lived up the street from us at the shore. She and her family were one of the few year-round residents on our block.

We have been separated by distance and circumstances over the 40-some years we have known one another, but we have never been separated by spirit. It was quite evident early on that Kate and I are soulmates….we are alike in so many ways. We have shared all the important stuff, like getting boobs and bras, first periods, make-up, trying cigarettes, BOYS. We were masters at strolling the boardwalk looking for guys and always upping our ages by at least one year when we talked to them!

Kate’s family was so different from mine. I loved going to her house and was there as much as possible. Her brothers still make fun of me for sticking my nose on the screen door…”Can Kathy come out?” She is the third of six children, a large Irish Catholic family with very strict parents. Her parents would probably be accused of abuse in this day and age, but then it was considered keeping the kids in line.

Her mother was particularly intimidating…..still is, but as I have gotten older it doesn’t bother me like it did when I was younger. Her father, though strict, could also have so much fun! Her mother worked nights as a waitress, so we often had time with just her father. He would take us to the beach in the evening, pile his 6 kids and me in the car and take us to the drive-in theatre, play games with us….he was wicked at card games, he would do ‘irresponsible’ (but fun) things …I remember him setting off cherry bombs in a trash can under concrete steps ( my ears are still reverberating from that!), and even get down on the floor and wrestle with us. I broke my arm playing ‘horsey’ with him and just to prove we were soulmates, Kate broke her arm as my cast was about to come off!

Kate’s father just celebrated his 76th birthday. He now lives with Kate as he suffers from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. It is heartbreaking to see the man he is today….a once vibrant, full of laughs man scared to take a shower because he doesn’t remember how it works. I can tell he just hates what these diseases have done to him, but he and the doctors are powerless against them. It saddens me to see that Kate’s life virtually revolves around the care of her father, but I know she is doing it out of love.

Kate’s family was the big, albeit dysfunctional, family I never had and my family was a slice of normalcy for Kate. She loved being with my family….my mother in her shirtwaist dresses, jewelry and make-up and my father in his suits and wing-tipped shoes…..like they had stepped out of the TV. My mother would bake my father’s favorite desserts and get dressed up on Friday evenings awaiting my father's arrival for the weekend. (He stayed at our other house during to week to be closer to work) We both found in each other’s families what lacked in our own. She needed calm from my family and I craved the action of 6 kids in a small house and the ‘edge’ of strict parents from her family.

As of last month, Kate’s parents no longer live up the street from us at the shore. Her parents were no longer able to live there on their own as neither can drive. I will miss that tie to my childhood and the wonderful memories I share with Kate and her family. I know that it will not be the end of my relationship with them. Our pasts are too intertwined to be forgotten or severed. For that reason I very much look forward to occasions such as the wedding shower at Kate’s next week. I love being with Kate, we fall into synch immediately. I love being with her parents, brothers and sisters who have always made me feel as if I am a part of their never-dull family.

I know that many people are not as fortunate as I to have such a terrific life-long friend as Kate. We are, of course, no longer part of each other’s daily life……but it doesn’t seem to matter. When we are together we still finish one another’s sentences and laugh and cry in the same breath as we did when we were kids. I sometimes think she knows what I am thinking before I do! I am very blessed to have Kate in my life!!