Once upon a time two young women married brothers and bought land adjacent to each other. They each raised families, cousins running back and forth the 1/4 mile between farmhouses.
Rita and Lil had tea everyday together and often shared apple pie or tuna sandwiches. They borrowed sugar, adopted pets (sometimes reluctantly), and spent Halloween out trick or treating and eating popcorn balls. As their children grew up and moved away they had more time for tea and pie and holding grandkids. Then the grandkids grew up and moved away as well.
Lil and Rita stayed friends through thick and thin and sickness and health. They outlived their husbands and some of the kids and were able to stay in their homes, though new homes cropped up in between. They saw brothers and friends go off to war and return, they saw the first TVs come to town, the farmland turn into suburbs, public water pipes replace their wells, and the modern miracles of computers and cell phones.
Then one day after more than 60 years of tea parties Lil was gone. Hundreds of friends and family said goodbye and mourned. She was there and saw them all, but sometimes it is easier to believe in years of routine rather than one afternoon of ceremony. So Rita is still waiting for her best friend to knock on the door to share another cup of tea.
Farewell, Aunt Lil, we miss you. Hang in there, Grandma, we love you.
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