March 7, 2025: Christine Saari, "Friendship"
Friendship by: Christine Saari I visit Klari in her nursing home as soon as I arrive in the Austrian village, grateful she is still alive. Her face unwrinkled, her body overweight, she sits at her table, working Sudoku sheets, a glass of hard cider and her walker nearby. She has been my friend since I toddled to her farm across the road. We turned sticks into dolls and mud into cakes. We jumped in the hay, picked flowers on the hillside. We brought in firewood, picked fallen pears off the ground, carried chaff to the hayloft on threshing days. Doing chores was play. We walked four miles to school in the valley in pelting rain, sleet and snow, summer heat. We both loathed the heavy kerosene cans we had to carry home for our lamps. At first communion, we equally hated our hair, mine in corkscrew curls, hers a springy frizz. We lived different lives: My house had books and window curtains. My mother set the table. I had porcelain dolls. Aunts sent fancy dresses. The mailman brought l...