Favorite Friend Friday

My favorite friend for the week: Melanie

Melanie Long Coffey is my favorite friend for this week. Melanie and I got to know one another when we were in high school. Melanie was one year ahead of me in school, but that never mattered. I can not remember exactly how Melanie and I met or even became such good friends…(Mel if you can remember..will you please refresh my memory). I just remember that we became best friends in no time at all. Melanie was just like a sister to me. It got to where we were always hanging out. Melanie was driving a few months before me so she was always coming to the other side of the county to pick me up so that we could all hang out. Melanie was always there when I needed a good friend too. She had a sense of humor that always made me laugh. I will never forget all of the good times that we had. We did many things in our time that we look back on now and wonder what we were thinking and why we did what we did…dangerous stuff indeed! We kept the roads hot between Murphy, Hayesville, Hiawassee, and sometimes Blairsville. At any rate, we were always there for one another and I always cherished her friendship.
Again, not sure what happened, but we ended up not being friends for a long time. I was sad, very sad. Quite a bit of time went by before we became friends again. I was glad that we were friends again, but I felt that we would never be the same. We never did get as close as we were before the big blow up…and that always made me sad. What made me even sadder was to know that while we weren’t friends, we both went through some very hard times where we should have been there for one another. I wish that I could go back and re-do whatever it is that we did to break up our friendship during that period of time. (Mel..if you are reading this and you remember what happened to hurt our friendship, will you please help me remember…)
Sometime back in 2001, I joined classmates.com so that I could re-connect with many old classmates. I was very excited when I saw that Melanie had subscribed too. Well, as a member I was able to send messages to others to try and get in touch with them. I sent Melanie a message and she replied. I was soooo excited. We kept in touch via email on a daily basis. When Kevin and I got married, I sent her an invitation. I knew that she was expecting and may not be able to come all the way to Sylva, but I thought that I would try. I was ecstatic when I saw her at the wedding. This was the first time that I had actually seen her in years! I wanted to put everything else on hold and just stand there and talk with her for a while. Well, she had to leave pretty soon after the wedding was over so I was not able to even chit chat with her. After the wedding, we lost touch. I tried to email her but I could not get in touch with her because the emails kept coming back to me telling me that there had been an error in message delivery. I was devastated. I wanted so badly to be back in touch with her! Well, I kept trying and trying and could not get a hold of her. Finally, devastated, I gave up. I knew that she had probably had her little girl and was very busy anyhow.
This past Christmas I was going through some old cards and addresses when lo and behold that I came across her mailing address! I immediately sent her a Christmas card and put my contact information inside the card..in hopes that she would get the card and get in touch with me. Well, in no time at all, I got an email from Melanie. I was so flippin’ happy! We emailed one another and got back in touch in no time at all. It is just like we never lost touch! Although, I am sad to say that I have not yet met her 3-year-old daughter, Sydney. Melanie is an incredible friend that I love dearly. We share so many wonderful memories that I will always carry with me no matter where I go. I feel that we have lost contact too many times…and I want to make sure that it does not happen again. I feel that God keeps putting us back together for a reason…even if the reason is just so that we have one another’s awesome friendship.
Melanie…thank you so much for your awesome friendship! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy life to get back in touch with me.