True Friends

True Friends

� Elizabeth Larrabee

They say I was born dancing.

But I owe it all to Mary Mitchell.

She took me in the tap class

on Saturday mornings

although I was too poor to pay.

The soft-shoe.

Buck and wing.

Rhythm, military.

I learned them

with everybody's "Aunt Mary."

Black

but I never noticed much.

When she was eighty-five

I made my final call;

the rare visit from hundreds of miles

when my heart cried out for home.

I crept up beside her.

Hugged her frail body.

Silent.

She sat staring ahead.

Straight and proud.

Blind.

"Elizabeth, is that you?"

Could she tell by my touch?

"Yes, Aunt Mary."

"Oh," she said in barely a whisper.

"Sally and Cindy

will be so happy to see you."

Her sisters had died years before.

Mary had Altzeimer's.

As we sat side by side in our special way,

we embraced those fifty years of love

for the last time.

I wondered

if she were really there

or had she already been to Heaven

giving me strength now

from some other place.

� Elizabeth Larrabee

Earliest Recall | Lady Slippers | How Poor Were We? | Free Food

The Smaller The Bigger | Mud Flats | Speaking of Smells | Random Pieces

Growing Up the Hard Way �| No Bogey Man | Green Apples | Poor Buster

Up and Down | True Friends | Moving | Rosie's Hangout | Crystal Ball

You weren't so Hot After All | Haunts | On Acting the Way You Feel | Amen

� ��� �

E-Mail Liz Larrabee