An Early Friendship Memory Holds a Life Lesson
Kim showed up at my school when we were both in grade six. I liked her short sassy haircut and how she was an excellent ball player. When Kim hit the ball, it would fly out of the park. She had a good arm and I was intrigued. She lived in one of the modern new apartment buildings. I wondered what it would be like to have a balcony with a view of the whole neighbourhood. I’d never met anyone who was half of anything and when Kim said she was half-Jewish; my interest was piqued. I considered her fortunate to have two older siblings. Kim had a sister she looked up to, and she gave me the impression they never fought.
Everyone in Kim’s family was captivating. I first met her mother in the dining room where we were having snacks. Her mother came from the bedroom appearing like she had just woken from a nap. She reminded me of a well-loved neighbour whose diabetes made it difficult for her to walk. Since Kim’s brother was still sleeping, her mom asked us to keep our voices low. Other than an older neighbour who worked nights, I’d never known anyone to sleep during the day. My new friend told me she came from Bala, and how lucky I thought we were to both know a little town with a magical waterfall.
At my family cottage for a weekend Kim declined my invitation to tromp through the forest or get into the row boat to explore the crevices of the lake’s shoreline. It astounded me that a girl, who had lived in the country, didn’t want to do those things. What I found out later was that when Kim said she was from Bala, she was referring to the name of her school, Bala Public in North York, not the tiny town I thought I knew.
At the ball game after school on the Monday following our rainy cottage weekend, I invited Kim to come to my house for supper.
“No thanks.”
She threw the ball to the pitcher and without missing a beat, her impressions about our time together at the cottage were blurted onto the baseball diamond.
“We didn’t do a bloody thing all weekend. I was bored to death!”
Diminished, I stood frozen behind the batters’ cage with my fingers threaded through the wire.
How could I not know she wasn’t having any fun? When we sat at the dining table and played board games with bowls of popcorn, hot and buttery, she looked right at home. When we warmed water on the stove in kettles and pots and carried them into the sunroom where my dad had placed the round metal tub––all in preparation for Jacquelin’s bath––I thought Kim was digging right in. I hadn’t minded staying with my two-year old sister while she playfully splashed in the warm soapy water. Perhaps Kim did. Was I someone who didn’t pay close attention to a friend’s demeanor? Or was Kim capable of disguise?
Our paths crossed again, five years later, in summer school. I’d struggled with grade eleven physics and I had to repeat the subject. I’m not sure what subject Kim missed. When I stood beside her at the traffic light on the first morning of school in late June, I was relieved to feel less alone about having failed a subject.
Delighted to see her, I called out her name, “Kim!”
She was with another girl, someone I didn’t recognize.
“Kim, remember me?”
“Y-yeah… Hi. What are you doing here?”
“I’m repeating physics.”
“Really? I’m surprised.”
“What about you?” I asked.
She didn’t say before the light turned and the three of us crossed the road. Kim hadn’t taken physics so that meant she wasn’t in my class. When I suggested meeting at lunch, I couldn’t hear her muffled reply.
The girl I didn’t know muttered something to Kim about meeting her later.
“Shhh… not in front of her,” Kim whispered.
Five weeks of physics came and went and not once did I see Kim or the other girl. I’m not sure if that was because she dropped out or if she made a concerted effort to avoid me. But a few years later, my aunt Marion met Kim at a baby shower.
“You were my niece’s friend,” said my aunt.
According to my aunt, “Never heard of her,” was Kim’s response.
Kim is someone I often think about. Did she follow in her brother’s footsteps and experiment with hard drugs? Did she complete that summer class? Was our time together so forgettable? Were we too different to be friends? Was I uncool and that’s why she rejected my friendship? Maybe my obedient adherence to my parents’ strict rules turned her off. Perhaps Kim saw me in a way that I didn’t see myself.
Kim spurned my offer of friendship, yet her blatant rejection continued to hold my interest and I’ve been curious enough to look for her on social media. I haven’t found her.
When revisiting my real-life story, I’ve considered why I’m thinking about a long-ago and short-lived relationship. To reflect I retreated from the keyboard and stared out the window. Earlier in the morning, the lake’s stillness had taken my breath away. Observing more closely, I noticed a thin layer of ice, which explained the stillness. Off to the right tied to a pine was my snow-covered canoe, the one Jacquelin had painted red. I’d been hoping to take it out for one more paddle before the arrival of real winter. I’d been waiting for a warmer day. What else had I been waiting for? Was I waiting for nuggets of wisdom to bubble up from beneath the surface? Nuggets which might reveal why my “Kim memories” remain so vivid? Was there a submerged nugget from which I was supposed to learn?
Continuing to sit by the window, my gaze settled on the shoreline across the lake. In my journal I wrote: The morning light illuminates in a way I’d not noticed before. Something new. The shifting rays of the sun bounce off the fragile ice, and, when I look close enough, dark shadows along the shoreline come alive.
Jacquelin came to mind and that’s when I judged myself to be less sure about knowing my youngest sister as fully as I thought. Did I bring the same childlike assumptions to both relationships?
When I was with each of them, who was I? Someone who didn’t want to disappoint? Someone who put others first? A person careful about how she said things, especially to people who could be cantankerous or hurtful?
Perhaps the only commonality was my desire to be close and accepted as a sister and as a friend.
What I understand now is that Kim showed no interest in being my friend. Does not forgetting Kim hold the nugget I’d been looking for while being with Jacquelin during the darkest time of her journey when I yearned for a closer connection? Whether she was healthy or not? Whether we agreed or not? I longed for Jacquelin to understand that our differences didn’t have to mean that we had to go away from one another.
In my youth, I misread my attraction to Kim. My admiration of her is why I attempted to cultivate connection. I thought we were friends and she didn’t. In Kim, I wanted someone to trust, hang with, come to my house for supper and talk to about my secrets. I had hoped to offer her the same. Was that an early adaptive survival skill coming to the surface? Yes, and it’s still how I know how to thrive in the world.
