Cindy

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter and I went over to Stephenville for her eye exam. While we were in Wal-Mart, I ran into a “girl” that I grew up with. I hadn’t seen her in several months so, of course, we spent time catching up.

Used to, we would see each other at least every Easter at church, if not more often. She hadn’t seen my daughter since she was small so that was a real treat for her. I’m not sure when the last time was that she saw my son, but he was probably younger than school age. I showed her pictures that I had in my wallet.

She caught me up on her family, too. She told me about her girls and what they were doing and where they were living. We discussed her great aunt who was over 100 and who had passed away a couple of years ago. We recounted our childhood days romping and playing and ruling the play area between our grandmothers’ houses.

Her sister had actually been closer to my age, but I always got along better with her than with her older sister. I think it was because she was so upbeat and she smiled a lot and was just a happy little girl.

Anyway, we had a few stories to relate to Brit so that she could get a sense of our relationship and our childhood.

Near the end of the conversation, she asked me if I was still teaching. I told her, “Lord, yes. I’ve been there 29 years.”

At that point, she asked me if I knew this “girl” named Cindy who lives in our community. I said, “Well, yes, I do. I teach with her and I’ve taught both of her boys.”

She said that her third daughter and Cindy’d oldest son were together and that she felt sorry for the baby because of both grandmother Cindys. I told her that I had probably seen her daughter several times, but that I never made the connection.

I remember her older two girls better because they were the ones I saw at Easter more often. But, I remembered her remarrying, having more children, and moving to Stephenville. Time passes so quickly that I never realized that they were not still the little girls in the frilly dresses I remembered from the Lamkin Methodist Church Easter Egg hunts.

For many years, Easter was the biggest treat because all of the little ladies of the church would get together and make this huge production of the Easter Sunday egg hunt and party. All the kids who grew up there came back and brought their children to bask in the attention slathered on by the little grandmothers and great aunts.

Cindy and her sister, Jeannie, would come down to Lamkin from Fort Worth every summer to visit their grandmother, Sadie, and Aunt Dixie. Sadie lived directly behind my grandmother on the next block. The area in between the two houses (and most of Lamkin, in fact) was our stomping grounds. We thought we “ruled the roost”, but actually, it was our grandmothers who did. We just got to shoo the other chicks out of the way.

Those are great memories. I have always just loved Cindy. She is a great person and I know that you are fortunate to have her as your grandchild’s “other Cindy.” I don’t even know her last name now. I just know that when I see her, it’s as if we’ve never really been apart, just catch up a little bit and move on.

I wanted to share this because it is a small world, after all.