It was 1963.
We were nineteen, still teenagers.
Nineteen is barely through childhood and there we were, both married and living in Connecticut.
We each knew 3 people; our husbands, each other and each other’s husband.

Bobbie was from a suburb of Chicago and I came from an area south of Detroit.
From the moment we said “Hi’, we both knew that we were destined to be best of friends, and we were….for 59 years.

Fifty nine years and never once even a speck of negativty between us, never a cross word, never a disagreement.

In our beginning, Bobbie lived high up on a hill in an apartment on the second floor of a big, old Connecticut house. The ceiling was at a slant so we had to kind of duck before we sat down on the sofa and she had to duck to get into the bathtub. But we were 19 and didn’t care.

I lived ten minutes away on the other side of town, on the third floor of a green and yellow old victorian house.
Mr and Mrs Lemberg were the owners of that house and lived on the first floor. They rented rooms and apartments on the second and third floors to military people. Our rent was $75 a month which took a nice big chunk of that Navy paycheck.
Mrs Lemberg, an absolutely delightful Jewish, grandmotherly type woman, often heard Bobbie and I running up the stairs to the third floor and would come out on the landing to greet us. She was everything sweet and we could tell that she got a kick out of the two of us. Her accent was combination Jewish/New England. Some of the things she said Bobbie and I kept with us and laughed about later. A few of her phrases stuck with us and we used them back and forth often. One day she patted Bobbie on the butt as she was talking and then said, “Oh Bobbie’s got a “goidle” on.” That was one of her best and we laughed about it many times over the years.

Our sailor husbands spent Monday thru Friday in a Philadelphia naval shipyard and Bobbie and I spent that time together, getting to know each other.

We smoked cigarettes like everyone did in the sixties, drank cheap wine that our legal aged husbands bought for us and we talked.

It didn’t take long before we knew pretty much all about the 19 years before we’d met each other. We took turns telling our stories. Without ever meeting each others families and new in-laws, there was no doubt from our in-depth descriptions that we could easily pick them out of a crowd.
We talked about our friends from childhood and high school, and we shared our hopes and dreams. But maybe the glue of our unbreakable connection, the most important of all that we shared was Elvis. We both loved Elvis (remember we were still teenagers.) However, even when we entered old ladyhood together, we still loved Elvis.

We learned about each other’s husbands by spending part of our precious week-ends together. We were four young people who had no idea what their lives had in store for them but one thing for sure…Bobbie and I held on tight and never let go.

We met other navy wives, and laughed together alone about some of the things we both found funny about them.

We were out of our minds with excitement when the Beatles came to America and we watched them on Bobbie and Steve’s small black and white TV.
After that, every now and then we’d just look at each other and break out into a Beatles song.

During the snowy winter nights when it was just the two of us, we took turns sliding down the icy hill where she lived. We didn’t have a sled but Bobbie found a big roasting pan in her kitchen. It worked fine. Remember, we were nineteen!

We learned to do laundry together at the neighborhood laundromat.

We grocery shopped at the market around the corner.

We ate lots of Connecticut grinders with Pepsi and Coke for dinner.

We did silly things just because we could like hop up on my kitchen table, sit there and talk. Who was gonna stop us? Well, Mrs Lemberg would have but she didn’t see us.

Bobbie was adorable and she stayed adorable the entire 59 years of our friendship.
In our beginning, she had thick, thick, naturally wavy brown hair that touched her shoulders with a wide naturally blond streak in front.
Over the years she wore it short and later a pixie but always she remained adorable. She didn’t wear much make-up, her beauty really was natural but she kept lipstick fresh on her lips, always.

She was a great listener but even better at talking. She had a fascinating style all her own when she talked. Her words came slow as if she was thinking hard before she said them, and always, she made eye contact. She was an awesome story teller and when she talked, I was the great listener.

In all of our years, I never heard her say a bad word about anyone. If there was something negative that she wanted to say, she knew how to do it without getting down and dirty. She rarely complained about anything. She had an amazing outlook on life and an acceptance of most everything. She was a realist and I’m a dreamer and together we were great pals.

Bobbie was a chain smoker, one after the other.
Watching her light her cigarettes was like viewing an instructional YouTube video. Actually Tik-Tok worthy in today’s world.
She made it glamorous, like an old Hollywood movie.
It may sound silly but I’m telling you, I watched her light her cigarettes for many years and it was always performance perfection. She never wavered.
She didn’t stop talking, never took her eyes off of me but slowly with one hand, would reach into her purse for her cigarette case, pull out one cigarette and the matches and put the case back into her purse. She never used a lighter. She’d put that cigarette deep between her pointer and middle fingers of her left hand, kept looking at me and talking, struck that match, lit her cigarette, lightly blew out the match then took a big puff and blew the smoke high up into the air. The whole thing was done very slowly and took minutes. She made it so elegant, and remember we didn’t know how dangerous it was back then. It was just cool. I smoked along with her but there was nothing fun to watch about how I lit up and…I used a lighter. I eventually quit. Bobbie never did.

When we were twenty we were transferred to Nuclear Power School in Vallejo, California.

Bobbie and Steve found a small house in the woods, off base to rent. We lived in Navy housing on base.

Bobbie got a job with a radio station and I became pregnant. Most of their week-ends were spent together and usually in San Francisco. We had relatives about an hour away and headed there with every chance we had.
The four of us did get together every few week-ends and played Canasta ’til the early morning hours. But there wasn’t much opportunity for just Bobbie and me.

The next transfers came when we were twenty-one and it was tough. We were being split up, all the way across the country from each other. We were going to Idaho and they were going to New York.
On the day we left Vallejo, we drove together for as far as we could. When it was time to take different roads, we pulled over to say good- bye. We were sad. We hugged and we cried and those were the first good-bye hugs and tears of many over our years from the time we were nineteen years young until we were seventy eight years old.

Our letters went back and forth and continued for four years.
We had telephones but calling long distance was an expensive luxury neither of us could afford and so we wrote.

When we were twenty-four we were ecstatic to be transferred back to Connecticut.
Bobbie and Steve were also going back to Connecticut but for a very short time. They were being discharged and going home to Chicago. We had two more years to go.
It was another very difficult good-bye with hugs and tears.
And once again, the letters went back and forth.

When we were twenty-six, it was our turn to be discharged and we returned to the Detroit area.

The miles between us didn’t interfere with our closeness.
There were letters, cards, phone calls (yes, eventually long distance became afforable) and back and forth visits.

The distance between Detroit and Chicago was an easy five hour drive.
We never let too much time go between visits.
Our girls have always known each other and felt that Jennifer was their cousin.

Our visits were marathons. We’d pour the wine, light the cigarettes and the talking would begin. We’d make it ’til about 3 a.m. and then we’d say good-night.
By the time each visit had ended we had updated each other on every aspect of our lives. We shared the good, the bad and the ugly.

We decided we had to go to an Elvis concert together but before our plans were made, he was gone.

We’d each been to Graceland but we wanted to go again, together.
I’m sad that we didn’t do it.

In 2019, pre COVID, Bobbie and Steve drove to California. It was a wonderful visit, the four of us had a great time together.

Like always, Bobbie and I sat up, just the two of us.

Anyone who could view that scene, would see two older women, drinking wine and talking, but that’s not what was going on.
It was two 19 year old girls, newly married, living in Connecticut smoking cigarettes, drinking wine and loving Elvis.
And we talked and talked and we laughed, oh how we laughed.

I could see her accessory muscles in her chest working harder for her to breathe and it took her a little longer to talk.

When I’d ask her every month during our phone gabs, “Bobbie, how are you?”, it was always the same, “I’m good Sue. I can live like this forever.”
But she didn’t.

Over all the years and all the letters we’ve written, we never wrote about it.
In all the hundreds of phone calls, we never talked about it.
And our visits, when we sat up til 3 a.m. filling each other in on our lives since our last visit, it was never mentioned.

I guess neither of us could conceive of the other not being here so we ignored it and pretended like it would never happen but, it did.

It’s been a year, I miss her horrible and I have a year’s worth of things to tell her but…..she’s gone.

She tripped on her backyard patio last Memorial day evening, fell and damn, she broke her hip. But surgery was done quickly and she was recovering. I sent my love and Jennifer promised to keep me updated.

We were due for one of our marathon phone gabs but I thought I’d wait til she got home.

Complications set in, not from her hip but from her lungs.

I began to become uncomfortable. I thought about her all day every day and held my breath til I heard from Jennifer.

What should we do? Should we go right away or just stick to our plan of us going to Chicago in October?

One afternoon Jennifer’s text read, “Aunt Sue, I think you should come.”

It was Friday, June 10th. We arrived at O’Hara airport in the early afternoon.

Steve was there minutes after we landed. Seeing him without Bobbie hurt and made the whole thing real. I threw my arms around him, I felt my body do a huge sigh and asked “How is she?”. He pulled away and I saw an immense sadness in his eyes, a look I’d never seen before and in that piece of an instant, I knew.

Later we found that he thought he’d kept me posted on and off during her final hours but somehow the texts never arrived.
I missed that last hug by hours.

We had no return tickets so decided we’d stay and try to help Steve get through the first part of the nightmare.
And, I think I needed to be there too but there was a horrible lonliness there without her. I’d never been in that house without Bobbie being there.

We walked in through the side door and directly into the kitchen. I’d been in that kitchen many, many times over our years but it felt different. I looked around at the changes she’d described to me during the remodel. I was seeing it all in person, every last detail. I wanted to tell her how lovely it was but, I coudn’t.

The kitchen table, nestled in a spot surrounded by bay windows looked out at their lovely back yard. Draped over her chair was a soft, delicate shawl. Just to the right of her chair was a small table holding everything she’d been using the last time she’d sat there; her magazine full of puzzles, her pencils and her glasses. On the floor, were her shoes placed side by side and her purse. It was all there as if she’d just gotten up for a moment.
We sat at that table every night, Steve, my husband Bob and myself. One chair was empty.
I wrapped myself in her shawl.

I met Dan, her son-in-law, and now I know why she loved and enoyed him so much.
And I finally met her two little treasures, Owen and Lexi.
And Jennifer…sweet, sweet Jennifer who has called me Aunt Sue since she was able to talk, I wanted to hug her and shield her from it all and just never let go.

We kept busy, went through all the motions. They have a town full of wonderful friends who love them both and wanted to do something so, they sent food. The doorbell seemed to never stop ringing. Pizza’s cakes, pies, cookies, casseroles. Food for the soul when the heart is broken.

There’s a part about death that I’d never thought of. Someone has to tell everyone. Someone has to say the awful words over and over to neighbors, friends…..everybody.

I was with Steve when he told the owner of one of the small neighborood markets that they’d gone to for years. She fell apart and wept, she loved Bobbie as so many others did. Each time he had to say it, it hurt him all over again and I hurt and cried as I watched him.

And so bad I wanted to tell her about the memorial.
Steve, Jenifer and Dan….they got it just right. It was perfect and it was Bobbie.
My eyes were fixed on the beautiful cremation urn just behind the speakers podium. It was too new. I was unable to accept it. I’m STILL not able. I’ll never be able.

But as the memorial ended and people began to mingle and talk, something happened. Something only perfect. There was music and it was Elvis singing a song. The song that once two silly married teenaged girls heard on the radio, jumped up together and began……………
“dancin’ to the Jailhouse Rock.”
Steve, Jennifer and Dan…..they got it so right.

I will think of her……………

Every January 1st, her birthday.
(I often called her my older, wiser friend.)

Everytime I hear Jim Croce sing, BAD, BAD, LEROY BROWN.
(Once she told me it was her favorite song.)

Everytime I have a glass of wine
(Here’s to you Bobbie.)

Everytime I talk to Jennifer.
(She sounds just like her mom only on a much faster speed.)

Every time I see Steve
(I’ll see her right there with him.)

Everytime I grow another year older without her.
(I hate that I’m now older than her but probably not wiser.)

Whenever I remember 59 years full of private little jokes between the two of us that always made us laugh.
(I’ll close my eyes and hear us.)

Every chilly evening when I pull her shawl over my shoulders to keep warm.
(It’s my hug.)

Each time I reach for something on my desk and see her ceramic trinket box
(Given to me by Jennifer and Steve.)

and of course, everytime I hear an Elvis song.
(Every single song.)

There is grief in my heart for the loss of my mom.
I feel sadness when I learn of friends and family who have left this planet.
I feel a loss for those I’ve loved but never known, who made the music that rocked my world and the movies that made me laugh and cry, and I can still get weepy eyed when I think of the furry family members who added to my happiness, but I’ve never felt the part of my heart that seems to have been carved out and gone with Bobbie.

To you my friends who are reading my words…HUG!
Hug tight to those who’ve helped make your life special and remember those hugs.

The last time we were together and hugged and cried as we said good-bye….. was our last time.
Had I known, I don’t think I ever would have let go of her.

My life was so much richer because Bobbie was in it.

And somehow I know, one day she’ll greet me and maybe, just maybe she’ll bring Elvis with her.

I love you Bobbie and good-bye for now.
And yes, I’m crying.
Our good-byes always brought tears.

xxx