Hiding Behind...

Anyone using social networking knows it can be an amazing way to reconnect with people from our past.  I sat at my computer one day, perhaps on a Freedom 45 weekend and her name popped into my head.  "I wonder where Anouk is these days?"  And there she was.  My primary suite friend from the years in Haiti.  The moment we reconnected it was electric.  We laughed and talked and planned how to see one another.  We are only 3 1/2 hours apart!  Her children are the same ages as my older two.  Ahhh another FB wonder.

And that is when she began to tell the story.  It is the kind of story that we all should have about compassion and camaraderie.  She told the tale of being afraid to begin kindergarten all those years ago.  Anouk was so timid she hid behind the piano! (Hardly the woman I now know and love).  She would not come out for the teacher.  She would not come out to play, and she certainly wasn't coming out for a lousy song.  The story continues with a child so compassionate and caring that she too hides behind the piano.  She stays there the whole time until Anouk is ready to come out. And they are forever linked.  She has told this story over and over again throughout the years.  Even her children know of the girl who joined her behind the piano.  Her name was Carolee. 

My mouth drops.  She cannot wait for her kids to meet me.  She cannot wait to tell her family that she has found the long lost friend who gave her the courage she needed to come out from behind the piano.  My heart races.  I mean Anouk and I really click. This is an amazing discovery and I feel that this friendship is busting with greatness.  I see our kids calling each other cousins (as true little Haitians would) and the trips to visit and her intelligence and spirit lifting me up!  And yet in this moment I am terrified, in a most childish way, to lose her...I truly believe that if she knows then she will not want me.

And so I say nothing.  The story will fade and we will just be the greatest of far away friends, I tell myself.  But it doesn't.  It comes up each time we speak.  I arrive at her home for the first time ever.  I am without my children.  The drive was filled with anticipation as I navigated one street at a time towards Anouk.  I arrived and ran to the door.  She opened it and out popped the words; "Wow! You are so tiny."  I never occurred to me that she could be shorter even then my sister.  We hugged forever and it was like no time had passed.  The children came running to meet their new aunt!  The one who had crawled behind- you guessed it- the piano with their Mom.  Their faces lit up. I shriveled up.

The lie was eating at me and I hadn't even told it!  Of course I hadn't untold it either...  How could I risk giving up this greatness?  Perhaps the magic of the friendship would be lost when I told her I wasn't in Haiti for kindergarten.  I joined the class in second grade.  The piano girl was not me.  I mean I would have been the piano girl if I were there!  I definitely would have been the one to notice her need..wouldn't I have?

The weekend is all I could want.  We laugh, we play, we dance!  Oh how I loved the dancing.  We danced until 6 am when my feet completely rebelled against the spiky heels they had so dutifully allowed me to pummel them in.  And then we fell asleep on the couches giggling and  eating spinach pizza.  To any one reading this, I would guess it would seem obvious that my not being that kindergartner is a foolish fear.  But still I worried.

It took all of my courage, as my heart raced to stumble and trip over the words, "I did not go to school in Haiti for kindergarten".  Anouk's face flashed surprised and then she in all of her beauty, burst out laughing.  "Then who was she???"  Relief...and the awareness of my foolishness set in.

I'm sure I don't have to sum up the chemistry of a real friendship and all that blah blah.  So I won't.  Just enjoy a good story and a chuckle at my foolishness.   And don't be afraid to share your own friendship stories.  ;)