A long overdue story

Over 20 years ago, my friend, Jesus, and I were heading for a craft fair in West Hartford.  At that time, I was still selling soda can dolls - Beverage Can Kids - and puff ball teddy bears - Boslee Bears - and Jesus was selling jewelry and some small, miscellaneous items. 

We arrived at our destination, and pulled into the parking lot.  It was while we were unloading the back of his car that he dropped a box of things...my things.  While we were picking them up, I became aware of someone watching us - you know the feeling you get when someone is staring at you...it's kind of creepy.

Anyway, as I looked around, I saw a woman in a car that was parked near us.  Frankly, she looked like she wanted to bite us at the very least.  At the worst, I suspected she wanted to hold us hostage until she could sell us to a foreign government.

I had no way to know that she was thinking my friend looked like a clumsy clown for dropping an entire box, while I looked unbelievably patient.  She wondered about our respective sanity, I suppose.

I remember saying to Jesus, "I hope we are nowhere near her when we get inside.  I actually feel afraid.  Look at the way she's staring at us."

He agreed that she looked frightening.

We got inside and found our assigned table...right next to her assigned table.  I felt that God hated me!  By nightfall, I was fairly certain my family would be getting a letter saying Jesus and I were being held in a secret location.  I was terrified!

Refusing to show my terror, I led the way over to her table where we did the same thing every other crafter does at a show...we introduced ourselves.  After all, I told Jesus as we headed over to meet our maker, we were going to be standing beside one another all day, so we had to make the best of it.  Maybe she would not take us hostage if we were polite...it could be that she would just gnaw on our bones for her supper that night.

Within minutes of meeting her, I realized that she was just tired, and probably not having a great day.  She told me, during the course of that conversation, that she was working on a temporary assignment, but said she once ran a Complaint Department in a place where she worked previously.  

She went on to ask if I thought she had a good face for a complaintment department worker, and I had to admit that she did!  My parking lot terrors were not that far behind me.

Leslie, on that day and on all other days over the last 20+ years, was friendly and very funny; most importantly, she did not seem to have any desire to have us for supper, or to have any interest in foreign governments whatsoever.  

As we talked, and after Jesus had returned to watch our table, she confessed that seeing him drop an entire box of merchandise had made her wonder why I had not kicked him while he was bending over to pick it up.  The frightening look that I thought was directed toward me out in the parking lot was actually directed at my friend.  I was very relieved...I would be returning to my own home and bed after the show ended!

Before I could even start setting things up on my table, I had to reglue a number of Beverage Can Kids and Boslee Bears to their respective bases, and set them aside to dry.  Leslie, my new friend, told me I was a nicer person than she was.  She said he would not have gotten away with breaking her stuff.

To make a long story short, Leslie turned out to be the kindest, most patient and caring person I have ever known.  She is a far better person than I am...even if I am nicer.  Nice is not everything.

Over the course of the years since our first meeting, she has listened to whatever problem I need to get off my chest, and she has never failed to provide wise, well-considered advice.  A lot of things I have gone through would have been unbearable, if not for Leslie.  She even made sure I got more sympathy cards than anyone else when my aunt, Alice, died.  One card she got another crafter to write, but the others she wrote herself in a disguised hand.

Considering the cost of postage - to say nothing of the cards themselves - that was really an amazingly generous thing for her to have done.  With the exception of my friend, Calla, I can think of no one else on this earth who would even have considered doing that...but it was Leslie who actually did it.

The same person who, at our fist meeting, said she had the hide of an alligator and a tongue that was dipped in acid and sharpened on flint, actually possesses a heart that is gentle, kind and true.  There is no one else like her.

I am glad my father got to meet Leslie, and I often wish my mother had known her, too.  She always said I was a better friend to other people than they were to me.  With Leslie, I know Ma would feel that I have finally struck gold.

As it turned out, we are also foster kin.  We call each other cousins, although we are not legally that at all.  The connection is so twisted that I probably will make it worse by trying to explain it, but I will take a crack at it.

My maternal grandmother grew up, basically, as a foster child in the home of Leslie's older relatives - great grandparents or great aunts and uncles; in any case, it was a few generations back from us.  I suspect, though, that you can understand why I said it was easier to say we are cousins.

We talk, either by phone or by email, every day, and I cannot imagine how I managed to live so long without knowing her.  Truly, she is the bright spot of my darkest days and I consider her friendship a gift...she might consider mine to be a curse, or worse, feel that I am the dark spot of her brightest days, but that is something I can happily deal with!