Member-only story
What Best Friends Forever Really Means
Friendship through the decades
Karen and I have been friends for 49 of our 50 years, ever since my mom babysat her while we were still in diapers. Since I have no siblings and my parents are gone, she is the only person who has known me my entire life and knows how I became who I am now.
The picture above was taken at an escape room several years ago. Just off camera are both of our children and a group of strangers with whom we were paired. We managed to escape the room without any arguments amongst the whole group.
The early years
When we were very young, we were competitive, each pushing the other to improve. I was just old enough that my motor control was better, and I could color in the lines. She became jealous and worked on her drawing and coloring.
Her mom was a teacher and worked with her on reading. She could read at two and could read the newspaper by age 4. Being five months older, I became jealous and taught myself to read that summer.
She was always an unusual child. Once I was grown, my mom liked to remind me that Beebers (Mom always called her Beebers as her last name is Habeeb) always wore her mom’s nightgowns to sleepovers and would laugh endearingly.
