My Friend

While in college I met lots of new friends, however, I had no idea that I would meet someone who would change my life.  Her name is Jan.  I just started working at the PASS Center and since it was the begining of the semester, we were hiring readers and looking for work study students.  Jan was a work study.  She was wonderful with our students and had an amazing work ethic.  She was an older student, like me but with a little more life experience and I admired how she worked at a law office, at the school and at a golf course and took classes and was essentially a single mom.  Wow!  I met Lalo and Elisabeth when they were 4 and 5 years old, she also has two older sons.  Elizabeth stole my heart immediatly.  She was so well spoken for a little girl.  So smart and cute and just a little firecracker.  We were instant friends.

Jan and I were also instant friends and she took me for who I was, for what seemed to be a first in my life.  She didn't expect anything from me but friendship and it was so refreshing to have a companion who liked me for me and not what I could do for them.  She is a christian.  In fact, a wonderful christian.  When I needed it, she would pray for me and with me.  I needed that.

Jan and I have been friends for almost 13 years and I treasure every moment of that time.  She loves my kids and my husband and parents.  She is strong when I cry and I try to do the same.  We laugh, cry, pray, worship, celebrate and mourn together.  She is exactly who I need in my life.  When I moved to Pleasanton, she was there, then she bought a house about a mile away from where I live now.  We are in the VFD Auxiliary together and try not to make too many people, including our husbands, mad at us.  We have the same bizarre sense of humor and we love each other.

Elisabeth graduated from high school just weeks ago, and I it feels like my own child walked that stage.  I am so proud of her.  She has grown into an amazing, beautiful woman.  She is going to Texas Lutheran University to study music.  Woo Hoo!!!   Go Bulldogs!  I always knew that Elisabeth had a little Lutheran in her.  She calls me Aunt Robyn and Olivia calls Jan Aunt J.J.

Jan knows almost all my deep dark secrets, and next to my mom, she is my best friend.

Jan just found out that her parents are ill and will need her help as time moves on.  I don't worry about her, she is strong, one of the strongest people that I have ever met.  I pray for her daily and hope that she feels me lifting her up to the Lord in prayer.  I know that it weighs on her heart the fact that she will not only be caring for her parents, but she is also raising two of her grandchildren, who are one and two.  She has raised her children and is now starting over with grandbabies.  I wish that I had her strength.