My Friend

 

L-R me, Mary
2017

Sixty-six years ago, God gave me a rare blessing: a life-long friend. Mary Igou Shurett. Born just six days apart in April of 1956 at the Dekalb County Hospital in Fort Payne, Alabama, my Mary and I have been friends since before we can remember.

As preschoolers, we could play riddle-ma-riddle-Marie over the party-line telephone because we knew each other’s house so well. In the basement of Dr. Killian’s office, we went to Mrs. Hulsey’s Kindergarten class together as five-year-olds. The summer between first and second grade, our families camped together at Smokemont Campground in the Great Smoky Mountains. We swung on a “Tarzan” vine that Mark found in the woods behind our camper, and we rode a tram to Ghost Town in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.

Mary taught me to pray. How? For years, I watched her pray for Bama to win football games.

One time when we were teenagers, I camped with her family at Dudley Creek Campground in Gatlinburg. Mary and I walked to a candy shop and talked to the taffy makers through the front glass window. We told them we hadn’t eaten in three days and would they please give us some candy. When they said they would, we confessed we were just teasing.

In high school, Mary and I were the first girls to letter in wrestling as the statisticians for the boys' wrestling team. Our senior year, we both had parts in the senior play: The Drunkard.

Mary went to the University of Alabama. I went to Auburn, but our friendship endured. She was my maid-of-honor at my wedding. She and her husband (Ben) now live atop Lookout Mountain where I grew up. I feel so happy every time I drive up that mountain and visit my beloved friend.  

Proverbs 18:24 says: “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” May the Lord bless you, beloved, with godly, faithful friends.