Since I’m one of those who keeps everybody’s addresses and contact information, I’m stressed to find I’ve lost somebody along the way … like a “Best Mommy Friend” from when my children were little. Things happen, though. Our lives move forward, or sometimes backwards. We move, get new jobs, kids change schools, some divorce, remarry, or not. We bgin to age & then one day we realize we’ve lost touch with these friends.

My friend Gail and I from Upper Michigan days were new brides and soon to be new moms. We had another good friend named Donna. Together we three friends had three adorable babies – Gail had a daughter, Becky, I had my son, Phil, and then Donna had her son, Eric. Three young moms with babies in arms. Of course we all had other friends there at K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan, with an average of 120 inches of snow a year. Friends, neighbors and support systems were abundant, but to me … Gail & Donna were truly my Best Mommy Friends.

We dressed our kids up & took them treat-or-treating together for Halloween. My favorite photo of these three kids is their first Halloween when they could walk around the neighborhood, with Becky dressed as a tiny little witch, Phil was a ghost and Eric was a cowboy. We moms urged the kids on from house to house, collecting candy to enjoy after kids were in bed – especially the chocolate.

We three friends baby sat each other’s kids, traded recipes, shared holiday meals and parties … and since we were all Air Force wives, we even rode blue AF buses together out to the alert shacks to visit our B-52 crew husbands. And then we began to move with assignments hither and yon. More kids were born to each of us. Lives changed dramatically.

Gail and I exchanged Christmas cards, with an occasional letter or phone call in-between, plus a few photos, for the next 45 years. Then three years ago we were reunited when her middle daughter, Linda, moved to Spokane with her family. Since that time, Gail and I have become ‘best-friend-e-mail-buddies’, have shared books, have gotten together one 4th of July in Gig Harbor with family, and have had some wonderful times visiting in Spokane with our husbands.

But we had both lost touch with Donna. Until now! We found her just this week. I feel like we’ve located buried treasure. What fun to find out our friend from so long ago is doing well, her kids are great & she’s a grandma like the rest of us. She promises photos soon. We are planning not just a reunion, but a slumber-party reunion here in Spokane.

I promise everyone their own bed and own bathroom, we’ll yak and chat, have dinner on the patio with lots of wine, I’m sure, unless we break out the Margaritas; we’ll watch at least one sappy movie with popcorn and will definitely have ice cream with chocolate sauce & raspberries at midnight. We’ll linger over coffee, quiche and muffins on the patio the next morning, and hopefully have a fabulous lunch at my favorite new restaurant. When you get to be our age, this is about as exciting as life gets, but it suits us. Three Best-Mommy-Friends from 48 years ago. I’m looking so forward to this. We’re thinking summer will be perfect.