Flashback Friday: Childhood Friends

Who was your first friend? Did you have lots of friends when you were growing up or just one or two close friends? Share memories from your childhood friends. For women, were "mean girls" an issue when you were growing up? Or were you a "mean girl"?! How did your friends shape who you are today, for good or not-so-good? Do you still keep up with your childhood friends today?

 This will be brief because I just returned from Spain, have a lot of catching up to do. Even though I had very good childhood friends, and still stay in touch with several of them, I will only talk about one, because today is her birthday--June 17th when I am writing this.

We must have met when we were very small because our father's were pastor's in the same fellowship, but we did not see one another very often as our families lived in different provinces and only got together at summer camp and/or annual general conference.

There was one time, however, when Mirtha and her family came to Buenos Aires for medical reasons. She had contracted polio as a baby. I believe this is the first photo of us together during the time they stayed with us. She is on my left.

I do believe that after that stay we corresponded faithfully for many, many years, long and often illustrated letters. Mirtha has a thick binder with all of mine and recently reread them to her great amusement.

I wish I were able to post the PowerPoint I created to tell the story of our friendship and for language teaching purposes. You could learn some Spanish! I will save you the effort and include only some of the photos.

Polio affected her spinal column, left her with severe scoliosis, and endangered her vital organs As a bedridden teenager she wrote a novel that won third place in a Moody writing contest.

This article was published in 1965.
Mirtha has since led a very full life as a literature prof, editor of a magazine for children, married 20 years, step mother and grandmother, writer and speaker, and encourager of many.

Three years ago I was privileged to visit her, only too briefly.

Happy Birthday, dear friend!

After you read this, you may want to go over to Mocha With Linda and read more stories of friendship.