Admiration for Inherited friendship

Admiration The theme this week for WordPress Photo Challenge is to show someone we admire and tell about them.

So here goes….

I can sometimes be overly protective of my friends. Occupational hazard? Oldest child syndrome? Personal grandiosity? Who knows but let me just say, it took me a while to get on board with my very best friend when he finally found his heart-head-soul mate!

I mean, I had watched him make some lousy girlfriend choices during our 39 year long best friendship including choosing ME, for about a minute, in the very beginning. (Thank god we both knew to nip that sucker in the bud. Oh man, the friendship, the partnership, the family times we could have missed out on….)

Anyway, a few years ago, he brings home this woman and even though right away, he thinks she’s “the one”, someone had to remain skeptical until she proved herself worthy! Right?

Poor woman. I wonder if she even noticed those piping hot coals we all raked her over. Probably not, because my best friend’s family (and me) all have way too much class to do that in any kind of noticeable way. As for Patty, describing her as having grace and class, well let’s just say I now know what “woefully inadequate” means.

But let me tell you, she’s all the way “in” now. I just love this woman. She is exactly who she says she is. She is fun and funny and generous and patient (especially with my friend). She is stunningly beautiful and exceptionally smart…maybe even smarter than my best friend, but do NOT tell him I said that. He has a fairly healthy ego, that one.

Turns out she and I grew up just blocks from each other in San Diego and while I sat at the beach, dreaming of becoming a people helper, a few years later, she was at the same beach, writing like crazy, rehearsing to become a famous writer.

Her list of achievements on the road to her youthful goal is long. She was a “professor of bilingual education, a school principal, and wrote teacher guides, educational texts and curricula.”

That last is an excerpt from the bio on her award winning NOVEL!!! Just one of her books! Check her out!!

http://www.patriciacleary.net/

http://www.patriciacleary.net/blog/

She has accomplished so much more and survived unbelievable challenges but those are her stories to tell, not mine.

She and my best friend, along with me and my James, have created a permanent friendship, a partnership really. We are building a home together, a retreat “compound”, for ourselves now and as a legacy for our children and their children.

This is the four of us after a hard day’s work building Casa Esmeralda.

I’m so happy for my best friend, but even happier for myself.

Look who I inherited!!!

And THIS is the same woman!! Fearless, determined, amazingly strong!

Mutual Admiration Society