Friends forever and a day...

I'm in a bit of a reminiscent mood tonight, I'm afraid. And as is the case most of the time when I'm in this sort of mood, I'm looking back with a smile. Actually, the thing that brought on my mood tonight was that I heard a song...and not just any song but one by Bon Jovi that I hadn't heard in quite a while. It goes something like this:

Blood on Blood

I can still remember
When I was just a kid
When friends were friends forever
And what you said was what you did

Well, it was me and Danny and Bobby
We cut each other's hands
And held tight to a promise
Only brothers understand

But we were so young (so young)
One for all and all for one (for one)
Just as sure as the river's gonna run

Chorus:
Blood on blood
One on one
We'd still be standing
When all was said and done
Blood on blood
One on one
And I be there for you
Till Kingdom come
Blood on Blood

Well Bobby was our hero
'Cause he had this fake ID
When I got busted stealing cigarettes
Bobby took the wrap for me

Danny knew this white trash girl
We each threw in a ten
She took us to this cheap motel
And turned us into men

Chorus

Now Bobby, he's an uptown lawyer
And Danny, he's a medicine man
And me, I'm just the singer
In a long haired rock n'roll band

Through the years and miles between us
It's been a long and lonely ride
But if I got that call in the dead of the night
I'd be right by your side

Blood on blood...blood on blood

Well, I'm sure that you get the picture. For me, there are so many songs that have the ability to take me back to a particular place and time...and without fail, this is one of those songs. I had forgotten, until I heard it again, just how much I love this song and by the time the first chorus was playing, I had flown back in my memories a good 16 years to a time when things were so much simplier and to when I was best friends with a girl named Christie. For this..and for so many reasons, this song (and most other Bon Jovi songs) will forever remind me of her and never fail to make me smile.

Christie...god, it is hard to even know where to start. We met when we were really, really young..I was 10 and she was right behind me at 9...and honestly, what does anyone really know at that age?? We were born a year and 4 days apart and I can say that for the first year that we knew each other, we hated each other. Neither of us could ever say in the following years just what it was that caused the dislike but it disappeared eventually and in it's wake, an incredible friendship blossomed that exists to this day.

The only way to explain it would be to say that Christie and I were alike in all of the ways it is important to be alike at that age. Thrown together at first by circumstance, with both of our families having a summer trailer at a trailerpark on the shores of Lake Huron, we soon found ourselves attached at the hip. And this bond that started that summer only grew stronger when we realised that we lived only 10 minutes apart for the rest of the year. Of course, at that age, a 10 minute drive might as well be six hours but we more than made up for being separated by phone calls and letters...all the things that young girls did back before the age of email and public transit in small Mid-Western Ontario towns.

And Christie and I grew up together. We went through so many things and slowly developed into our own personalities but all the while we knew that the other was right there..going through the very same things right by each other's side. I was there for her the night she got drunk for the first time on her dad's whisky at a school dance and she was there for me through the infamous "Wayne" years, the first guy I ever fell hard for. I was sitting there at her side the night her uncle died of AIDS..long before we knew what AIDS stood for, let alone what it was. And years later, she was right by my side the night my dad passed away from a heartattack. To put it plainly...a friendship like that can't be bought.

But with Christie and I, there was always much more laughter then tears and we were so much alike that at times it could be downright scary. We thought and acted the same and more than anything, we lived to make each other laugh. We shared the same interest in music and while she wanted to be a record producer, it was with Christie that I first realized that I wanted to be a writer some day. We were patient with each other when things got bumpy as they always did in the lives of two teenage girls and even through we grew apart and close again through the years, there has never been a time that I have doubted that if we needed each other, we would both be right there.

She never did go on to become a world famous music producer, and as for me, well, I'm still working on the writing thing. But I can tell you that she morphed into one hell of a photographer and a wonderful mom to two absolutely beautiful little boys. And I can happily brag that I was with her when she bought her very first camera at the age of 13 on our very first big-girl vacation (read: no parents!) at my Aunt's in Orillia. And to this day when we see each other, which certainly isn't as often as it should be, we always find ourselves saying that we hope our children somehow find the same kind of friend to share their lives as we found in each other.

One can only hope.