Reuniting With My Childhood Best Friend 20 Years Later

“You know the easiest way to burn the most calories, right, girls?”

My best friend’s mom, whom we called Mary Therese, leaned against the doorframe and didn’t wait for an answer.

My 9-year-old eyes shot up from the Monopoly game board.

“You can burn up to 1500,” she continued.

“Really?” I inquired, the whole idea going mostly over my head, but nevertheless, I was intrigued.

“You should tell your mother,” Mary Therese nudged.

My mother did what other mothers did ― went to Weight Watchers. And she didn’t talk about sex.

Regina grabbed my hand, her eyes wide with horror.

“Let’s … go swimming.”

Mary Therese was born in 1940 and died in 2022. I just found her funeral card tucked in the back of my underwear drawer.

If Regina was embarrassed about her mom, she didn’t need to be. I thought Mary Therese walked on water, even though she sometimes didn’t get out of bed during the day, and one time she went to the hospital because she’d gotten too sad.

That afternoon at the Monopoly board was in 1978. There was an awesome rhythm to our lives then. It was the middle of a summer filled with Marco Polo, bike rides to Circle K, playing Spit, and trying out the newest gadget on the block ― the microwave. Regina and I took turns spending the night at each other’s houses, oblivious to the idea that accidents could happen and that days that were entirely predictable could, in an afternoon, explode into shards.

One Saturday, Regina’s dad left to give a flying lesson in his small plane, and he didn’t come back. They crashed into North Mountain, just down the street from our neighborhood.

How could that be? I wondered. We were just playing. We were just feeding peanut butter to Regina’s dog, Rags.

Mary Therese — suddenly a widow at 38 and a little shaky as it was — was left to raise four children under 14 on her own. She decided to move the family to Ohio, and I was devastated as I watched Regina’s bed and dresser and bathing suits and board games being loaded into a moving van.

My childhood was over in an instant. For a year, Regina and I wrote a million letters back and forth.

Then we didn’t. Years passed.

Two decades later, I was living in Uzbekistan, teaching English and fixing my heart, which had been broken by a divorce. My two-year stint there was almost over and my future was cloudier than when I’d arrived. I had nothing to go home to. I’d burned bridges.

One night after dinner, I saw a bright green line flash across my computer screen.

Ker! It’s me, Regina! Where are you? I moved back to Phoenix. Mary Therese is here too. I’m married and I have a baby. I need a friend!

Memories blew in like a monsoon. I saw two little girls rollerskating in matching red, white and blue swimsuits in the Mormon church parking lot. I saw them humming songs underwater, attempting “Name That Tune” until they ran out of breath and had to race to the pool’s surface. I saw them playing softball under bright lights ― me as the catcher and Reg on second, hoping to get somebody out on the steal. I don’t think we ever did.

The heart of 9-year-old me tugged in my chest.

Regina was looking for me.

I started to count the days until we’d be reunited.

Three months later, I was sweating on the doorstep of the address Regina had sent me.

Do I ring the bell? Will I recognize her? How old is Mary Therese?

A dog barked. Then another dog. I heard a small child. Fumbling. Female voices. Bee Gees on the TV.

Regina swung open the door.

“Ker!” she exclaimed with a plump little toddler balanced neatly on her hip.

We giggled, looking around, when in sailed Mary Therese, white haired and lovely looking.

“Little Keri Dresser. Now let me get a look at you,” she said.

Wine glasses appeared, and within two minutes, 20 years vanished as we plotted out the next 20 ― which Regina and Mary Therese determined would include a great man for me.

“Time to start burning calories,” Regina winked. We all laughed.

I blushed under their attentive eyes.

Regina insisted on helping me with reentry into American culture. She patiently drove us around and listened to my complaints about there being too many SUVs and too much to choose from on the store shelves. We celebrated her new pregnancy.

When my savings ran out, I found a job teaching at a small charter school in the desert. I fell in love with the first and second graders. After just two years there, they made me the principal. I was totally overwhelmed.

I discussed it over wine with Mary Therese and Regina one evening.

“It sounds like you need a good secretary,” Mary Therese said, smiling mischievously. “I’ll do it.”

“Really?” I gulped. Was she up to it? Little charter schools come with their own breed of large problems. Still, I loved Mary Therese, and the thought of her working alongside me was exciting.

When her mom left, Regina sat across from me, face ashen.

“Are you sure about this, Ker?”

I bit my thumbnail. “To be honest, I could use the support.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I wonder if it’s meant to be.”

Ever practical, Regina rolled her eyes.

A month before school started, Mary Therese showed up sporting beautifully done hair and gorgeous pink lipstick. She arrived early, stayed late, whipped the upside-down filing system into shape and color-coded our crumbling trailer. Mary Therese also tackled forms, answered phone calls, learned state mandates, and comforted worried parents. And that was just the first day.

I didn’t realize I’d been handed a pro.

She made me feel like I might just be able to do this job.

I called Regina because I couldn’t hold it in. Before I could say a word, she blurted out, “Oh, God, did she not show up?”

“Shit. Was she dressed?”

“Looked like a million.”

“She’s amazing!” I told Regina. “She’s having so much fun. Meeting all the families — and then the president of the board walked in — you know, Carolyn —”

“Carolyn deDragonlady?”

There was silence on the other end.

“Your mother’s a miracle, Reg.”

What does someone say when the person who broke once — who crumbled to dust when you were 9 years old and has spent a lifetime trying to pick up the pieces for you — becomes the strongest one in the room at age 70?

“Phew,” is what Regina said, and then went on to proudly tell me about her mom’s employment at University of Ohio’s medical clinic, one of the leading research and practice institutions during the ’80s. Once Mary Therese had gotten her bearings after Hank’s death, she’d simultaneously served as the clinic’s office manager, director’s secretary, human relations go-to, and staff social worker.

I hung up the phone and lifted my eyes to the water stains and blinking lights in the cracked ceiling above me. All I saw was grace. Mary Therese had given me this huge gift and asked for nothing in return.

The rest of the year unfolded in amazing ways. Enrollment grew. The kids were loved by the best school secretary/nurse in the world.

A couple of years later, Mary Therese and I both left school administration. She went traveling. I got married to a man she and Regina manifested.

I don’t pretend to know what the afterlife may hold. All I can say is this: If there is any sense in creation, Mary Therese is decluttering heaven while holding hands tightly with Regina’s dad — never having to let go again. And she’s holding the rest of us steady — with love. And perfect hair and pink lipstick.

Kerith Mickelson is a freelance writer and high school English teacher. When she’s not playing darts and cooking with her three kids and husband, she leads yoga and tai chi classes. On weekends, she coordinates skateboard events for foster kids. She writes about memory, motherhood, illness, and faith, sometimes rooted in Catholic ideas, sometimes Buddhist, sometimes drawing on images of everyday beauty in family and the fragility that comes with loving deeply. Her writing is featured in Notre Dame Magazine and Her View From Home. Her work also earned honorable mention in the 2024 Writer’s Digest Writing Contest in the spiritual writing category. Connect with her on her website.

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