Feb 18, 2020

Oh, my best friend. Even before I met her. Her name is Angela. Angela Maria Berry and our mothers were best friends. I’ve known her forever. We did everything together because our mothers did everything together.

So I just remember everything about her family. Her family was from Oklahoma. I had a great aunt in Oklahoma. So we would take the family trek to Oklahoma. My mother was actually born in Redbird visiting her aunt. And Angela’s family was from a nearby town. It was a bigger town than Redbird. It was Wagner. I think that was the name of the town. Or [town name]. Those are close. And so she had family both places.

So we would visit every weekend and during the week. And her mother played the piano really well. So she would on Saturdays, we’d sit in the living room. And my mother loved to listen to her best friend play the piano. So before there was a name that tune, we did that. Name that tune. And later, all of the fun things came back with the big bands in the mall. And, you know, no matter where life took us, our lives intersected.

She’s now in Florida and she she was born. Lucy, was it a year? She her birthdays, the same birthday, same year as my husband now. And so just going through weddings. I remember her. We were very guarded but when she went to college she met her husband and her father was just concerned because, you know, was he going to church and everything. And having to meet the dad, he decided to become a minister. And her dad was very into the church but he was his minister’s biggest challenge. And he was thinking, “Oh okay, I don’t have to worry about her going to be religious but that’s taking it a little bit too far.”

So we’ve had so much fun from times in the park, first boyfriends, first date. She was always ahead of me. So when she went to college, her first roommate became her best friend so the two of them became my older best buds.

That’s putting that in a nutshell.