Best Friends in the Second Grade

Our best friend in the second grade went by the name of Carol Ann. We’d met when both our families moved into the brand new houses on 6th Street. It was a new "affordable" subdivision. She lived right next store in the smaller white house. Carol Ann and us were 1 ½ years old that first year.

We’d share lives back out on her backyard picnic table, create homes under the summer linen her mom hung to dry, and build snow forts in the front yards come winter. We even had overnights up in the treeless treehouse (stilts) that my father and his friend built for my brothers cub scout troop. We’d been growing and changing since back when the yards were nothing but sand and dirt and no one had real fences. Carol Ann and us both went on to the same nursery school and began our elementary "career" together. We always saved seats on the bus for each other.

She had the nicer mom, who baked and talked to kids. By second grade, my mom took a full-time day job and turned us into latch key kids. After my older sadistic brother had tormented us enough in all this newfound "freedom and boy power," we’d go running for Carol Ann’s Mom, athough we were supposed to stay in the house until one of the parents got home. She was our safety. Carol Ann and us each had siblings older and younger and nastier than us. She seemed to understand and shared her mom.

Carol Ann and us were the only girls that age on a very kid friendly block.  There were nine boys in the same grade as Carol Ann and us.  She was allowed out more and had fewer chores, but we could still join in because sometimes it was the numbers for the different teams that mattered and were sought.  There were 61 kids on that block all within ten years of each other, plus or minus. There were a lot of games like bike riding, hide and seek, soccer, baseball, basketball, tennis, tag, red rover and such. Some of the kids we would babysit for as we reached the age of ten.  Six of us our age went on to become varsity athletes in high school.  Although, we were enrolled in different sports, most of us became leaders in our own field.

Coming into second grade, Carol Ann and us had a falling out by proxy. A new girl, Michelle, moved in across the street from her house. I remember playing one last game of Barbies over at Michelle’s, but I could see Carol Ann going over more frequently than I was asked. I remember being in awe of Michelle, but she thought we were "strange." She seemed rich because she had parents who gave her matching white furniture with ruffled curtains, a big thick white shag rug and a Barbie Doll Dream House with a lot of beautiful store bought clothes. Ours were only "homemade."  She was also the only girl and oldest of four kids. Michelle was in the fourth grade and didn’t have the heart for two friends. She was very blunt. She said, "Carol Ann doesn’t want to play with you anymore." So we stopped.

We were second year Brownies in the second grade so that took up some of our attention. There was a transitional friend named Judy, but the real love of our life was Sarah. We were both 8 when we met. We became inseparable. In third grade Carol Ann was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. She stayed in the house more. Her father was a truck driver who used to drink a lot of beer, fight with his family and do a bunch of swearing. It wasn't that my father was any different, but we had been growing different than Carol Ann. 

None of that mattered as long as we had Sarah.  She and us specialized in imaginary games that included play school, stuffed animals, and invisible red motorcycles.  When we reached 10 ... our new best friend died. She was in a bike accident coming over to our house on a busy street.

We became loners with the exception that with the loss of Sarah, the part who played and knew her best became our "Sarah" part.  Sarah remains happy and bridges our world to God and heaven.  She is also the keeper of our health and safety.  I was the new personality created to take over the role of sadness, grief, and loneliness.  My name is Corey.  I had the greatest amount of "time out," but didn't talk much to external people for about three years.  By that time there were one core and ten parts. In the external world, we became "bus kids" shipped to different schools to accommodate the neighborhood over crowding. I stopped saving Carol Ann seats in 7th grade, when she started smoking in the back of the bus. We became a "jock" and she became a "freak." Those world’s never mix, except Carol made sure no one ever bothered us. We stayed in scouting and paid a lot of attention to leader "mother figures."

When I was 17 our parents divorced, but my father and his new wife stayed in the same small Minneapolis suburb of Blaine as Carol Ann and her family. The families remained friends. I moved away that same summer to southern Minnesota for college, then soon after to Chicago to raise a family. I’d hear things aboutCarol Ann, but we’d soon forget the details. Seem to remember she'd gotten married and had kids.

  When our father and his wife died last year, she came to the funerals. I was looking at someone very important to my life and we couldn’t respond properly.  The part who stutters was out.  Carol Ann seemed friendly and outspoken just like her Mom. But, we regressed into someone who was small, hurt and confused. We made no long standing connecting ties.  Carol Ann became just another part of a past we didn’t want to return to. 

Hmm, sorry John ... It had started happier ...  Oh yeah, I growed into me and that's all just fine and dandy!!  That's truly the happiest of endings!!  I still worry over things, but my feelings and thoughts that I have and collect from the others has given me a reality surpassed by none other.  Most of my part now days has to do with the ability and desire to write.  :)