Sheila Sims Iding
Everybody should have a friend…a best friend.
Everybody should have a childhood friend…forever.
Everybody should have friend that has known you since you were 3 years old.
Everybody should have a friend to sit in the same row as you in that one-room schoolhouse…and go on that teeter-totter…and those swings.
Everybody should have a friend to walk to that school with you or sit beside you on that little bus that “Aunt” Helen drove.
Everybody should have someone who laughs so much with you at school that one day you have to stay in from recess and laugh together the whole recess. (We did.)
Everybody should have a friend that is so familiar that when you go to that “big” new school and everything is unfamiliar, when she is beside you it still feels like “home”.
Everyone should have a friend who is so much smarter than you that you inspire to be better and who wins all the printing contests…that you just pout.
Everyone should have a tire swing and a tree that is made better when your friend is there with you.
Everyone should have peach trees in their yard and a friend who will shake the tree with you and sit there in August and eat peaches together.
Everyone should have a fort made from blankets and sticks by the fence way in the backyard and they should have a friend in that fort to share adventures and secrets and secrets and adventures.
Everyone should have a friend that lets you spend the night and spend the night and spend the night so many times that it feels like “home” to be there.
Everyone should have a friend to take tap dance lessons with so that the recital isn’t scary…it’s just fun (and so was wearing all that make up).
Everyone should have a friend who shares her mom with you when you need a mom most…year after year.
Everyone who lives way out in the country should have a friend to spend the whole of days together until the street light (the one street light) comes on.
Everyone should have someone to grow up together in 4-H, Pioneer Girls, and Brownies with trips to the county fair and praying together and selling cookies together.
Everyone should have a friend that, even with all those other clubs, you form your own club and you pinkie promise that it is forever.
Everyone should have a friend that fills your heart with sadness when you have to leave her each summer to stay with your grandparents. How I wish we had cell phones and skype back then. But I would still miss her.
Everyone should have a friend that when she grows up and moves to Alaska you come to the startling realization how far away the Aleutian Islands really are.
Everyone should have a friend that, after all these years, reads your blogs and writings and knows the background and memories of your words and thoughts…more than most do.
Everyone should have a friend that if you grow up to be a teacher you tell your first graders all about her and growing up with her and being friends with her and thanking God for her.
And everyone should have a friend with a kind, gentle soul who loves people as much as she loves nature and who loves the simple things because she knows their real wealth.
Everyone should have a forever friend that no matter how old you get or how long it’s been since you talked or how far apart you may live, they are close in your heart…always.
And everyone should have a friend whose birthday is tattooed in your heart because you celebrate her birth since you know her life is a gift from God…to YOU and to many.
On May 16th every single year since I can remember I celebrate the life of Dy Ann Scutt Clark because everybody should have a childhood friend…forever.