Happy 50th Brithday to my dear friend Mary

My dear friend Mary is 50 today. I hardly remember a time in my life when she was not in it. We met in 7th grade in English class. It was September of 1972! We were 11 years old that September. Somehow the K's and the M's were seated near one another in that fateful class. She a middle child with a brother one year ahead of her. Me a baby of the family, my closest sibling 11 years older, wearing a long dress I made, thinking I was cool. I raised my hand to use the bathroom and she decided I was a nice person she would like to meet, we did. The rest is as they say history. We became fast friends. She the sister my age I never had, me the confidant she needed through those awful teenage years. We remained fast friends through high school. She the track team member. Me in the theater, choir on the fringe of the pom pom squad. I had a major crush on her brother. He returned the affection as much as he was able. We shared secrets, crushes, life, walked home together and knew every up and down of life together. We each went our own ways for college, she to the city, me to the wilds of West Virginia, we graduated from college. She ahead of me, I managed to squeeze 4 years of college into 7! Mary put herself though The George Washington University and she graduated with a history major, having worked the entire 6 years of school. It was then that I knew what an amazing dedicated person she was. I'd come home from the country to stay with her in her downtown DC row house. It was so far from my life in the rolling hills of West Virginia and medicine. She in her history and books, me in medicine and patients. I floundered in school, went to Europe for a semester, she stayed stead fast to her goal of graduation. She did and landed a job as a reporter writing wedding announcements for a small paper in Pennsylvania. She had followed a summer crush to that town. It was there in that news room she first laid eyes on her beloved Kevin Keane. A man whom she would have ups and downs with before both realizing they were meant for one another. I was honored to be a bridesmaid in her Philadelphia wedding that warm day in September in 1989. Since then she has had her Kevin and her wonderful growing family. Four beautiful children came to them in the ensuing years. I again am honored to call their baby my God son. A child born to Mary in a year I only dreamt of and hoped to taste the love of Motherhood. That has not been a blessing for me, but I have my Jack to keep warm in my heart forever. This year Mary's Jack is in 7th grade. I wonder if he will be as lucky in life to find a friend he can call brother 39 years from now. I am lucky to call Mary McInerney friend, confidnet, and sister.

This is the earliest photo I can find of the 2 of us. Pat (her brother) is in the photo too. He became my sidekick for many years. This is 1978, the summer we graduated. She was borrowing my bike to ride to school from her Georgetown apartment. Pat and I were heading to Goshen boy scout camp for the summer.

I may have some of these facts wrong, or in the wrong order. But this I know for sure, Mary and I will always and all ways be friends.

Happy Birthday to my Mary. Your forever friend. Heidi