Happy Heavenly Birthday, Sondra.

      Sondra and Bobby were my best friends before I became a teenager. Sondra was one of the biggest tomboys Oakdale ever produced. When she discovered that she was a girl, we drifted apart. Cousins of opposite sexes tend to do that I think, but tomboys drift further away. Everything you have in common just kind of disappears. One day there’s this girl you don’t know standing where the guy you hung out with yesterday was standing. 

    Bobby, Sondra, and I had hundreds of adventures before we hit our teens.  We built a treehouse in her front yard. She climbed the tree without fear and nailed boards into its fork fifteen feet off the ground. It was just a floor with no walls, but we spent hours up there playing games that I can’t remember. 

     We started digging a hole to China when we saw a cartoon character do it. We buried a time capsule in it when we got tired of digging. We were about four feet down next to a mulberry tree. I don’t remember exactly where it was or what we put in it, but we promised to dig it up someday. 

     Sondra gave me my first black eye on the way home from school when we were eight, but she told everyone at school the next day that I got in a fight with a boy from Lincoln Elementary. She told them I sent him home crying instead of the truth. She sent me home crying. She could humiliate me or make fun of me, but she didn’t want anybody else to do it. 

     One time she saved up a couple of dollars in pennies to buy me, her brother, and herself penny candy at Ben Franklin’s.  Another time she bought us pea shooters and peas. We played war games for days.  

     As a child, she was a very caring person who wanted to make people happy. Later in life she had problems with relationships, but I saw her a week before she passed away. Sondra hugged me and told me she loved me. When she let go, I saw that nine year old that blacked my eye. I told her I loved her, too. A week later she was gone. 

     She’d be 55 on 3/17/2022 if she was still with us. I wonder what we’d say to one another now. Would we talk about that time capsule we promised to dig up someday?  Would we laugh about the pea shooters, the treehouse, or my black eye?

     I’m thinking about you like I always do this time of year, cuz. I love and miss you. Even though we didn’t spend any time together as adults, my world was a much better place with you in it. 

     Maybe someone will find that time capsule lunchbox we promised to dig up someday and wonder who buried it that deep. It was three kids with big hopes for the future. Most of all, I’m sorry our someday never arrived in this life, but I hope to see you again in the next. Happy Heavenly Birthday, Sondra. 💔

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