Dear readers, this is Danette, my favorite babysitter. I spent the day in Anniston and Oxford with her. Before today, I had not seen her in almost 30 years.
Danette is nine years older than I am, which is a larger gap than I remembered. I was thinking five or six. We had a special relationship that was one of her being unambiguously in charge, but in which we were very much “running buddies” too. Riding with her in her baby blue Volkswagen and listening to her cassettes had a lot to do with how my musical tastes developed. She was into new wave and hard rock, with a splash of progressive. Sound familiar?
It was so cool to fall back in with her today and visit with her adult to adult. She remembers things I didn’t remember, but that I got with her prompting—and vice versa. I enjoyed hearing her uncensored memories of my parents’ divorce. I enjoyed the perspective she brought to some neighborhood occurrences that I didn’t fully understand then.
But mostly I just enjoyed being with her again and laughing. It was like finding an old picture book you remember really loving, and turning the pages and rediscovering where that love came from.
My sister and my mother moved to Panama City Beach in 1984, and that was pretty much it for mine and Danette’s interaction. Wasn’t so easy for a 13-year-old and a 22-year-old to keep up with each other then. For a 42-year-old and a 51-year-old in 2013, it’s a lot easier. We’re not waiting another 30 years. Hope we can include my sister next time.
I’m going to flirt with cliché here, but folks, when someone means something special to you, dawdle not. This is just the kind of thing that we all too often consider wistfully without ever acting, and then someone dies and the regret is forever. This is not a dress rehearsal. This is life, and the clock is ticking.
See you again soon, Danette. Thanks for one of my favorite days ever.
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