All Grown Up!

Last month my oldest friend had a baby. We had met in kindergarten where she was the one with a drippiest nose and a HUGE handkerchief pinned to her pinafore that she had no clue what to do with. She was the one who climbed a Jamoon tree on the first day of summer, fell from the topmost branch, broke a leg and spent her entire summer vacation in a cast. She was the one whose sage advice to the silent, listening class on how the best way to handle the tight slaps of the Hindi teacher was to move your head side-to-side yourself, that way the slaps would never really hurt. If you offered resistance, you are the one who will end up hurt she said. Very sound advice that. She was the one who climbed the basketball pole in school with her skirt hanging over her head, just to show us that it could be done, it was not necessarily a guy thing. She was the Vice President of the one and only club I have founded, the one that was so secret we can’t tell you the name even now. In the 10th grade she stood on the stage in an important role in a serious Hindi play. She was in a sari, very dignified and all. She began her dialogue and the pallu started slipping. Any Indian can tell you what a no-no that is. By the end of the play it was on the floor. The hisses from the front row, the side wings, fellow actors, and soon the entire auditorium failed to get her attention. She was that serious about her dialogue. She was paired as my girl (being among the tall ones I was often assigned the boy role) in a folk dance. We had to turn round and round swirling these sticks in the grand finale. The fake braided hair extension that had been pinned to her short style left her head, did its own little dance, and traveled the entire breadth of the stage to hit the Chief-Guest in the knee. SHE is now a MOTHER. And a great one at that from what I can tell. The baby is an angel and my friend is up and about, planning her life and getting on with her own career. She regaled me with her daughter’s antics today, telling me how fast she’s growing up. But WOW, when did that happen? When did my friend grow up?