everyone has someone in their life who you just connect with automatically. be it a high school friend, a sorority sister, a blogging buddy or even another mom you meet during the daily hurry of events, when you meet this person you just know you will be friends.
for my mom that was a woman named kevin. i call her kay. today, she shares her story with you.
{if you want to know a little more back story, click here to read about it}
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I was reintroduced to the other half of my soul in May of 1976. I say reintroduced because after a short time it was apparent we had been a part of each other in another life. To look at the two of us no one would be able to know we were each a half of a whole.
Brina was blonde, blue eyed and I was brunette and brown eyed, but that was the only difference we could find.
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| kay (on left) and mom at the beach |
We met in our first semester of nursing school and something just clicked. We discovered we had the same birthday, were both left handed and were competitive. Both of us were only children to parents who had married, divorced and remarried. Neither of us cared to wear a bra, both of us smoked, loved sweet tea, Albert’s hot sauce with our chips and loved to read. A friendship started one day and then it was as if we had always been together.
Many felt our relationship was “unnatural” – her Mom’s description actually. We didn’t care what people said. We just were what we were and we accepted.
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| mom about to tear up some king crab legs |
Our love was unconditional, without judgment, always with support and encouragement.
Oh we had “normal” relationships with others. We were both married, had friends and we occasionally spent time apart but nothing every truly separated us.
Time passed, we continued to each be a half of a whole, finishing each others sentences, talking to each other without words, never far apart in spirit but for a time far apart in miles. We shared births, birthdays, holidays, illnesses, vacations, surgeries, laughter, tears, pain, joy. nothing separated us. ever. The only thing that changed was our names. We went from Brina & K to Auntie Brina & Auntie K.
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| my dad & mom on left, auntie kay and her husband, terry, on right |
We weren’t too far away from our plan to take our hubbies and retire to the Hill Country. We had picked out our rocking chairs for our porches, decided on the flowers we would plant and knew where “our chair” would sit in each living room. We even considered putting our hubbies in one house and us in another – next door of course.
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| mom and kay dancing & laughing with terry at a wedding |
This was “our plan” but it certainly wasn’t God’s plan.
Almost 35 years to the day I met her, she left me. The last thing she told me was she loved me and would call me later that evening. I still yearn for that call.
And she left a lot more than me.
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| mom and me circa 1987 – we had matching mullets 🙂 |
Initially all that I felt was overwhelming, breath taking away pain. Absolutely nothing took the pain away, nothing in my life had ever hurt like this. I was half of a whole. I cried, I prayed, I cried, I yelled, I cried and eventually my eyes were opened…
I became the whole.
She left me with beautiful gifts that needed me. And I needed them. The day she left I had seven children, the day after I had nine. She gave me the most precious gift she ever had, Skye and Rance. There is no better gift than the love of a child. It’s a love that keeps growing and will eventually span through another generation.
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| mom, my brother and my father at brother’s graduation |
Do I still hurt? Of course. But I also have joy. Brina remains in my heart and in my soul. I see glimpses of her every time I see, talk to, hug or hold my precious gifts. They are a part of her and I am a part of them.
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thank you for sharing your story kay. i wanted to have your side documented so that when i have children {one day i promise!} i will be able to share with them what it is to be a friend and a soul mate to another.
