When I get the text from Melynn, it\u2019s 8:30 on Saturday morning and we\u2019ve just finished our cinnamon buns and read the story of St. Nicholas. We\u2019re in the middle of a new family tradition<\/a>, gathering the toys we\u2019ll be giving away that day. The boys are on the carpet in the hallway vrooming cars: Chris and August and Brooksie, all on their bellies in their jammies.<\/p>\n Melynn sends me a text to say Carey is gone. She died at 10:45 the night before.<\/p>\n I am standing by the counter in the kitchen, drying a few dishes, putting things away. I am doing what I\u2019m always doing. And these words are not what I thought I\u2019d see: Our friend Carey.<\/p>\n See, we had a neighborhood of girls. If I stood in my front yard at an angle looking back, I could see Carey\u2019s house. And two houses down from her lived Melynn. How many afternoons did we knock on each other\u2019s doors?<\/p>\n I\u2019m at the counter in my kitchen but I\u2019m holding an image of Carey in my mind: She\u2019s a little girl in her most favorite t-shirt, one she wore for years: Barbie in neon colors and some hot pink wind shorts. I\u2019m standing at the counter looking out the window but I\u2019m seeing Carey, that image of her cross-legged on the warm sidewalk in front of her house, Barbie in hand.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n I\u2019m thinking of when we drove home from school that day in sixth grade and Carey\u2019s mother stopped the car because she saw a broken bird flailing on the sidewalk, a bird hopeless on the pavement. Somehow Carey\u2019s mother saw that bird from her seat behind the steering wheel. She pulled the car to the side of the road. She scooped that bird into a box.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Melynn always knew how to play with Carey, as if by instinct. Her ability to befriend someone different than herself\u2014not from a place of pity, not because of any grown-up\u2019s expectations\u2014was one of those things God orchestrated in his grace: that Melynn\u2019s family would move into the house two doors down the street from Carey\u2019s. That Melynn would know how to love her. That Melynn would become her best friend.<\/p>\n Carey was the first person I ever knew with a disability. She was born with an extra chromosome. Down syndrome affected every aspect of her life: how she learned, how she played, how she experienced relationships. And we who knew her loved how she saw the world. She was intense and earnest and demanding. She knew how things ought to be done and most of the time she saw them done her way. She had blonde hair and a straight smile and a love for full names. She believed wholeheartedly in full names. So I was always \u201cMichaboyett\u201d and she never came up for breath.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a long time since Carey and I were friends. I\u2019ve seen her maybe a handful of times since high school. But once upon a time, we were together every day. Her mom drove me to school each morning of sixth grade. I\u2019d walk to their house and stand in the kitchen as Carey finished her cereal. (With water! She did not care for milk.)<\/p>\n And I\u2019d climb in the car with her mom and she\u2019d drop us off in the parking lot. Did they give me a ride home every day too? I don\u2019t remember. What I do remember is that one spring afternoon, when the sun was up and glowing bright, when her mother pulled the car over.<\/p>\n Carey\u2019s dad was a veterinarian. And her mother said, \u201cYou don\u2019t mind if we\u2019re a little late, do you?\u201d I didn\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n And she pulled the car over and placed that broken bird in a little box and drove it straight to her husband\u2019s office.<\/p>\n A flailing bird on the road, broken and waiting.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n See what Melynn knew was how to love, without fear and without attention. I remember one year of elementary school, when being Carey\u2019s \u201chelper\u201d was suddenly the coolest of assignments. When all my friends and I were trying to make a name for ourselves as the kindest and the most super of the \u201csuper citizens.\u201d We wanted certificates and trophies. We wanted honor. Who was it that said Melynn hogged Carey, as if she were a thing to be shared and passed around? Which one of us argued over when it would be our turn to play with Carey on the playground, who would get to read aloud to her in reading time?<\/p>\n This is the story you should know: Melynn was never one of us. She was always the truest friend. After college, it was Melynn who moved back to Amarillo, who When Melynn moved to the East coast, Carey stayed in their apartment. She lived alone because Melynn had already taught her how to do it.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n I am standing at my counter thinking about Carey. That time in Brownies when I let her tie my hair in knots and my mom almost popped a blood vessel when she saw Carey\u2019s handiwork. She detangled and combed those knots for hours. I\u2019m thinking about God\u2019s good grace and how he brought Melynn home just in time. How she tried to move to Dallas this past summer but the plan didn\u2019t work. How three months ago she ended up back in our hometown. For such a time as this.<\/p>\n Carey wasn\u2019t sick long. And Melynn was there. Carey\u2019s best friend. Melynn, was there. At ICU. At Hospice. At the end.<\/p>\n Melynn sat with the family in the funeral last week. She was listed in Carey\u2019s obituary as a survivor, as Carey\u2019s best friend.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n That time Carey\u2019s mother stopped the car and she held that bird with its fluttering heart. So much compassion for life, for the most precious lives, the ones precarious, the ones half-understood.<\/p>\n Only a few know the glory they hold in their hands. Only the bravest give up what they can\u2019t keep to offer the sort of friendship that lasts eternal. When I get the text from Melynn, it\u2019s 8:30 on Saturday morning and we\u2019ve just finished our cinnamon buns and read the story of St. Nicholas. We\u2019re in the middle of a new family tradition, gathering the toys we\u2019ll be giving away that day. The boys are on the carpet in the hallway vrooming cars: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":999,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[26,52,59,154,124],"class_list":["post-5243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beautiful-and-broken","tag-being-loved","tag-friendship","tag-grace","tag-grief","tag-story"],"yoast_head":"\n
\ngot a teaching job and asked her friend Carey to be her roommate. It was Melynn who taught Carey to live on her own. They cleaned the house and bought groceries. They sent Christmas cards from \u201cThe Girls on Austin Street.\u201d They lived like family.<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/p>\nPhoto from lavelaundry.tumblr.com<\/a> via Noah Barron<\/a> on Pinterest<\/h6>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"