06.S04 Chapter Six, Snippet Four

New Prairie Woman
Susie Rosso Wolf
Chapter Six, con't

The days that followed our reunion at the Ontario Airport were filled with phone conversations with my closest friends and confidants about the tailgate party. I felt so blessed during that time, realizing how many dear friends I actually had. Lois was my darling friend from work who was first a customer of mine in the flower shop but quickly lost her title as customer and earned my friendship because of her sweet, kind and endearing ways. Linda and Diane of course were my lifelong friends from my childhood days growing up on Bray Street, original members of the Sunshine Club; they were the two I could pour my heart out to in ways no others could understand. The sunshine club knew me inside and out. Naturally my sister was someone who listened intently and who had a way of shining light on aspects of my situation that only a family member could relate to. Sister was always so compassionate and caring. And then, there was my baby cousin, Tam, who was my girlfriend rock, my heart, my soul’s twin, my conscience, and fundamentally my alternative perspective when needed. Of course there was G, but G and I had slightly drifted apart due to a misunderstanding that happened between us while G was recovering from a terrible accident she had that resulted in a broken arm. While attending a Chargers Vs Bears game in San Diego during the holidays, she was walking through the parking lot of the hotel she was a guest at and talking on her cell phone when she missed a slight curbing that lead up to her room. She landed on her left elbow and severed the humerus bone. She was taken to the emergency room and then later she endured a very rough surgery. The surgeon inserted a titanium rod into the arm, connecting the rod to the shoulder socket then to the elbow and that had to be stabilized for seven weeks while she convalesced at home and was dealing with serious pain issues. So G was not exactly herself and I had disappointed her by not driving out to her home in Valencia to visit her. There was tension between us on the telephone, which was unnecessary and unfortunate, because of a miscommunication. I had called her a week or so after her surgery asking if I could come by to bring her anything she may have needed and to pay a visit and she said no. To this day she doesn’t remember saying no because she did want company, but she needed the support of her friends and I should have known that her saying no to my visit was the pain medication talking. Perhaps, in retrospect, at the time she may have felt too tired for company or unkempt or her house may not have been in order so she was unable to receive guests at the moment I had asked her, but I realize now, all too late, that I should have just driven out there anyway, should have been a better friend, but I wasn’t. And then there was the fact that she most likely would have hit the roof if I had confessed to her that I was getting back with “those evil selfish user people who are so jealous of you.” So I resisted my desire to tell her the great news about Robert and Brenda and did not call her to tell her one word about it.

Sister was nurturing and supportive and very happy that “peace and harmony” had prevailed in my life. Lois was also very pleased to hear the news, in a hopeful yet reserved kind of way. Linda was cheering for me and felt that God and the Virgin Mary had healed us from our pain and difficulties. Diane wasn’t as thrilled as the others; her protective instincts indicated that she was very skeptical and warned me to watch out for signs of them trying to use us for selfish purposes, a common theme of thinking that ran deep within many of my friends. But Tam had the most interesting reaction; she was overjoyed with news of the reunion and was very happy for me. Tam knew how much I had been hurt by Robert cutting me out of his life and she felt that I needed to mend those fences.

Once exhausting the list of numbers to call in my phone book and fulfilling my dutiful obligation to report all interesting and relevant changes in my life to my group of women supporters, Brenda and I burned up the land line wires from Northridge to Sun City replaying every moment from that night out in the parking lot of an airport I had never been to in my entire life. How strange it felt, to be there with them in the night air, having a party at the tailgate of our truck, serving manicotti and garlic bread onto paper plates while listening to stories about Montana while Snowflake and Cricket were hanging onto every word and their father’s legs and arms as Brenda watched all of us interacting with each other for the first time since Cricket was a tiny baby. “The entire night was surreal to me and I felt as though I was having an outer body experience. I was simply in the astral world and not in a parking lot in Ontario.”