nancie

It seems I am incapable of forgetting birth dates, even of people who are long since gone or disappeared from my life. So today is an easy one to remember, the birthday of my best friend from Winnipeg days. I was her maid of honour and she would have been mine, except she had a baby the night before my wedding day. We celebrated our anniversaries with champagne —for a while—until we decided the day after our fourth, that one bottle of champagne per person per night was too much.

We sort of grew into each other. i remember thinking in our later life, that if we had met then we would never have been friends, we were so different. But we had memories by that time that glued us together. I had left Winnipeg, never to return, so no one in the east knew my family. She had known my parents and my brother whom no one here had any knowledge of. Her memory of them was a comfort to me.

She left Winnipeg for a while, a few years, so we had time together in or near Toronto. I was in Stratford until my husband died, before she went home again. I remember she and her husband came to visit me after Bill’s funeral and I remember her husband scraping the mud off his shoes before they came in the door. They had gone to the grave before they came to me. I have never forgotten that.

I just lost the rest of my blog. You’d think after al these years, I wouldn’t do that. I’m still bad at bridge too.(Nancie was an excellent, bear-cat of a bridge player, which I am not, one of our several differences.) We both were addicted to oysters, though….

I can’t find it and I can’t repeat it. I have to cook dinner for Matthew.

Well—happy birthday, dear heart.