However the BFF friendship starts, it’s a relationship to be treasured

What creates friendships that last?

Sometimes, with our oldest friends, it’s shared memories: being the two jump rope “enders” together; choosing each other for the Machanayim team when either was captain; sharing a bunk, giggles, and extra desserts at camp.

Then there are same-age-same-stage friends. Sem roommates, cramming together at final exam time; young mothers, sharing their children’s first steps; mothers of older kids, comparing shidduch and wedding stories; grandmothers, coping with a pandemic that keeps them from hugging their grandchildren.

However the BFF friendship starts, it’s a relationship to be treasured. We Sisters are acutely aware of this now because we just lost a dear friend. Mirel Weinberger, a’h, has been a friend since elementary school. Her intelligence, kindness, grace, and emunah made her an FFL: a friend for life. Her recent petirah left us devastated — and inspired. We chose friendship as our theme as a tribute to Mirel.

By the time of her shloshim, Mirel’s BFFs from elementary and high school completed more than 20 books of Tehillim in her memory, created a daily shmiras halashon shiur, gave tzedakah to her shul. We laughed at the old stories, cried at our loss, shared memories and grief and friendship in a way that Mirel herself would have loved.

We’ll always remember her. Because a BFF is… forever.

L’illui nishmas Mirel Devorah bas R’ Elimelech

Emmy Leah recalls….

Troublesome Times

Aaaah, memories.

I sit and revel in memories of old friends. Me, Mimi, and Bev. That’s how I remember us three. Ungrammatical, yes, but we weren’t boxed in by grammar rules. And we weren’t boxed in when we played our imagination games, either.

As “The Masked Marauders,” we’d race through alleyways in neighboring apartment blocks, wearing homemade masks. Super-heroes fighting for — and to be honest, sometimes against — truth and justice. When feeling less destructive, we’d create rooms from abandoned shoeboxes and faded wallpaper samples discarded by a local store. We delighted in rooms that would make an interior designer cringe.

And then there were songs. At 11 years old, every feeling and thought begged to be put to music. We’d sing our frustrations with school, sing our likes and dislikes, sing our simple joy in friendship.

With all that music in our lives, inevitably we created our own singing group, with its own theme song:

In June of 1967

            Three kids who were about eleven

            Formed a group called the Troublesome Trio

            And now they are famous wherever they go…

Wait a minute. June of 1967?

Ouch, memories….