Today I eulogize you, Jena Johnson

You know, people don’t eulogize each other often enough. I looked it up, the meaning of eulogy is “speech or writing about a person or thing” and it CAN be a living person or thing (though often eulogies happen at funerals). Yeah, we do a bang-up job giving eulogies and tributes and heartfelt speeches and poems when someone dies. I guess it’s kind of a cultural thing to do. But let’s face it, folks, when it comes right down to it, saying these things when a person is gone is really nice, but then the person-of-honor doesn’t get to appreciate what’s being said (except perhaps in spirit). It’s a little depressing, if you think about it. As for me, I say to hell with social convention (again). I’m gonna go ahead and eulogize you if I darn well feel like it, and I’ll do it while you’re alive! So today, I pay tribute to my dear friend Jena (Tauriella) Johnson. She just had a birthday, and so maybe this is my gift to her. A birthday eulogy, yes, that sounds about right.

Some would look at the environment of our lives and make the assumption that Jena and I became friends out of necessity—and this is probably partly true. When you live in a town as small as Exeter, the pool of potential buddies is small and somewhat contrived by means beyond of your control. You make friends with the people around you, usually your neighbors or classmates, or you don’t have friends, because there aren’t any other people. Period.

Jena and I were the only two little girls at a particular daycare setting one summer, and we became fast friends. From that summer on (I think we were 4 and 5, respectively), we were pretty much inseparable. Looking back we were probably a likely duo to get along as well as we did, two spunky, bright, creative little girls, both without sisters, both fans of mischief and invention. She liked coming to my house to drink real Mountain Dew and record ourselves interviewing each other. I liked her house due to its central location (closer to the pool!) and neverending supply of frozen fruit slush cups and Monopoly. I was also convinced that there were secret passages in her house or at the very least bodies buried in her basement or yard (Jena’s house was an old Victorian that used to be inhabited by doctors…and I’d read a lot of books), so I spent a fair amount of time convincing her to go on fool’s errands searches with me. Beyond the appeal of each other’s abodes, we just got along. We liked the same things. We went to the same church. We had complementary personalities (with some clashing mixed in there from time to time). We had the same core group of other friends. It just worked. She was my playmate, my business partner (the market on homemade bookmarks is killer in 5th grade), my teammate, my co-pilot, and the keeper of my secrets all throughout my youth.

As we grew up we remained close, even through moves, marriages, and now children. It’s not like we’ve never had our rough spots—we have—but what friendship hasn’t? At the end of the day, we were there for each other, and I feel pretty strongly that it’s always going to be this way. Just when I think maybe we’ve grown apart, that maybe I’ve got something going on in my life that she isn’t aware of, she hits me out of the blue with some spot-on question or comment about it, and I realize that she knows me as well as she ever did. She’s a beautiful, kind, smart, and generous woman, who I personally watched blossom into one of the best moms around (I once heard her say, and I quote, “Kids ruin lives!” Awesomely, I was 5 months pregnant at the time. She was being facetious, but it was still hilarious. Less than two years later she became one of the most doting mothers I can think of). I’m quite proud to know her, and I’m even prouder to be able to call her my friend.

So yes, we probably became friends out of necessity. Maybe it’s still a little bit that way: we’re friends because we always were, and because the roots are so deep that we can’t uproot them now. But I think it’s more than that. The necessity of our friendship does not negate the destiny of our friendship, the fact that perhaps we were both put in that small town, in that tiny daycare, at the same time, out of all of the towns and daycares in the world and times in the continuum because we were supposed to be friends. I feel so grateful that destiny was on my side on this one. So, Jena Johnson, thank you for being you. Thank you for being a part of my life for 25 years, and thanks in advance for the next 50. I love you.

Now get out there and eulogize the living, folks! It’s the feel-good activity of the summer, I promise.