Peanut Butter and Jelly Friends

Dear Sara,

          We’ve always been the best of friends, right from the very start.

It was twenty years ago today, the start of grade one. I was new to the neighborhood, and you took me under your wing. All the other kids laughed at my freckles and glasses, but you, you told me I was perfect just the way I was.

Remember how I had forgotten my lunch and you gladly shared half of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich with me? To this day, I’ve never looked at peanut butter and jelly and felt the same way.

We were inseparable! Best friends till the end; no one could get in our way. We would talk for hours, you told me of how your parents were always yelling and how they would take their anger out on you, and I’d tell you not to worry, that things would soon be getting better. But they didn’t, did they?

Do you remember when we were in grade two? That horrible winter’s night? Who am I kidding, of course you do. I was sleeping over at your house. We were upstairs in your bedroom, playing with your dolls, trying to ignore the screaming and yelling coming from down stairs. Do you remember how scared we were when we heard the gun blast? But of course we didn’t know what it was until we walked downstairs for a glass of milk and found your mom, dead, on the living room floor. We were scared to death. We both began to cry and then everything turned into a blur. I can remember the two police officers showing up at your door, but that’s about it. I know they took us to the police station where my mom and dad came to pick us up. It wasn’t fair, you had such a bad life, and mine was so simple.

Remember when your Great Aunt from Florida came to take you home with her. Best friends torn apart after only one year. Do you remember how we wrote letters to each other every week until grade five? Then, suddenly your letters stopped coming. I got worried. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like you! How could my best friend all of a sudden just leave me in the dark? I started to get really depressed, and that was when my mom told me your Great Aunt had died. You were moving again. Going to stay with a foster family.

I didn’t hear from you for three years, yet I thought of you every day.

Beginning of grade eight, déjà vu all over again.  I was the same nerdy kid with freckles and glasses. The kids started to make fun of me, pointing and laughing because I had to sit all alone with no lunch. But there you were, walking up, and then sitting down next to me. You had tears in your eyes and a big smile as you offered me half of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which I again, gladly accepted.

You still looked like the same little girl I had become friends with years ago. You told me all about Florida and your foster family. About how your distant cousin had heard about your troubles and brought you back here to live with her. Yet again, we were inseparable.

Remember our graduation? How proud we both were that we had made it? I don’t think you know this, but Sara, you were my idol, you still are! I looked up to you; I always wanted to be just like you. You always seemed so perfect, despite your rough upbringing.

Do you remember that hot summer day, when we both got accepted into the same University? We moved into the dorm and started our schooling together. Even though I studied to become a teacher and you a psychiatrist, we still saw each other all of the time. We’ve spent almost our entire lives together, and I couldn’t imagine living without you.

So Sara, I just want you to know that you mean everything to me. And as I sit here, eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I can only begin to imagine how many more years to come that we will be best friends.

Love always,
Your Peanut Butter and Jelly Best Friend,
Emily