I get by with a little help from my friends

When we lived in Houston during med school, our church congregation was called the Hermann Park Ward. Med school was a particularly stressful time in my life, but my wonderful friends kept me going. Our husbands' had similarly long hours and we were all young mothers living in cramped quarters. We all walked with restless children through the halls of the church, we hung out in the nursing mother's room during Sunday School, and we got to know every place in Houston that was worth visiting with little kids. We had fun together at playgroup and pre-school, and we lived at the UT student housing playground.

When we moved to San Antonio, I either left friends behind or they moved away as well. As a result of living in the Stone Oak area of San Antonio, our church family tended to be older than we were, further along in their careers, and with older children. It was difficult to be fairly alone in my husband's schedule and our subsequent Army life, with my oldest children the ages of other families' babies, with more friends outside of church than at church. There were a few times at church when our young children would be a handful at church and the older ladies behind me would laugh quietly to themselves. It took years, really until Audrey was born, for me to realize that they were not laughing at my misfortune, but they were reminiscing together on their time spent in my shoes.

Although the good friends I had at church, my Army and Hardy Oak friends kept me going those six years in San Antonio, I still have a hard time writing and even talking about the day one particular friend left. My friend Karina's husband was the only other resident at church whose schedule rivaled Neil's. With children roughly the same ages as ours', I did not have to explain anything to Karina for her to understand what my life was like. Better still was that Karina seemed to pull off our crazy lifestyle with such grace and infinitely more energy, that I looked to her when I was not sure what to do next. Even though we did not see each other on a daily basis, I was unprepared for the intense loneliness that I felt when she left. I spent the next year at church saying, "Yes, Neil is at work again. Yes, I am alone again. No, it did not bother me until you asked me about it." Well, maybe I did not say the last part aloud, but I thought it often.

There were some great Army friends that I made in our first week in SA that I still miss. There was one friend, whose husband was Neil's colleague, where a typical conversation between us was, "How are you doing?" "Girl." With a certain look in our eyes, that was all we needed to explain what we were dealing with. Her husband just began his second deployment and I think of her often. My Army friends are spread all over the world by now, and I look forward to being stationed with them again. I keep trying to plant the idea in Neil's mind of a San Antonio military medicine reunion cruise in a few years.

Then we moved on to Fayetteville. I knew after our first week there, that we were where the Lord wanted us to be. Or more specifically, that He knew that I needed these people. It was wonderful to be surrounded, not only at church, but in our neighborhood and school with friendly and down-to-earth people. I was pleasantly surprised by what great friends I made in my short time in Fayetteville and I look forward to being stationed with them again, as well.

Now that we have landed in Boston, or Needham, to be more exact, our ward is a lot of fun. It is a larger version of the Hermann Park Ward. There are young families everywhere. But I have to say that I love not being the young mom trying to keep a baby quiet or entertain a toddler. I am in a much better place now that Sydney is the oldest girl in Primary, the elementary-school age kids' program. I watch these young moms and reminisce about the time I spent with my friends as a young mother in Houston. I start to smile and stop myself before it turns into a quiet laugh-no need to torture someone who thinks I am laughing at their active child.