My earliest memory of my first best friends was when we were about 4 years old and riding our red tricycles around the old deck in my backyard. The rumbling red wood under our shiny red frames around and around and around. She stayed with us pretty often because her brother had cancer and was getting treatment, we even stepped it up to riding our bikes together.  I know we have many earlier memories together because we are 3 months apart and have known each other since she was born (I’m older), but this was the first one I remembered.

One thing I know about myself is my brain likes to protect itself. My earliest memories are only good ones. Mini-golfing with her and our families, us talking on our pretend phones with our dress-up clothes and even going on trips together to Chicago. We went to the same church and small group, lived two blocks away from each other, and even for a while went to the same school. Every single time we hung out we would try to make our time together last as long as possible,  letting the parents talk for as long as we could. Hiding and pleading for sleepovers whenever we could. The best part was, they often did let us. However, I did do some research (aka asking my mom) to find out what happened to end our seemingly forever friendship because my precious mind blocked it out. It should come to no surprise that our families were very close. You don’t just go on a vacation with any family, so my mom was very unhappy to figure out that the way we found out they were moving was through my friend.

We went to this super awesome day camp that we just had just finished. We had the absolute best time. We carpooled and had a rotation for the pickups to drive there and home. On the very last day, my mom picked us up in the Honda Pilot and we started to drive home. We were talking and she said that they will be moving churches. The memories are a bit fuzzy but I think we already know they were moving to another part of town, which was already crushing because I wouldn’t get to live right by my best friend. To hear that I wasn’t going to see her every Sunday and then convince our parents to go out to lunch afterward and talk for hours after that, was world-crushing. When we got home, I run right up to my room and was sobbing for three hours. My mom told me she would pace in front of the door asking if I was ready to talk yet, but I just kept saying no. It was the end of an era, my teeny, tiny, perfect, little world, was smashed into so many pieces I couldn’t find a way to put them back together. The only thing I could do was cry. Cry and cry and cry my teeny tiny perfect little heart out. Rob Bell once said “All change is loss” and on that day, I felt it deep in my bones. I had lost the only friend I had and I thought I would ever need. When I finally came out,  my mom had to actually explain what this would mean going forward. I don’t remember this conversation at all. I’m sure my brain was just filled with teeny, tiny, perfect, little tears.

The end of an era; loss, it’s one of the hardest parts of life to deal with.   Even writing this piece, I felt the tears well up in my eyes just thinking about this.  I grew up on these memories; mini golf, the princess dresses, and Shedd's Aquarium. That life was all I knew of the world, except PBS Kids. I had these memories to build my life on.  Who knew that all of my pain could come from the loss, of trikes to bikes.