Julie Lynn Parson Hoepfer and a Lesson of Love

"The Three Musketeers of West Hanover Elementary circa late 1960s, together again after 40 years. Funny thing about love is that even though people may go their separate ways, where real love exists, it is not diminished by time. Time does, however, diminish our physical bodies. The three of us have lost 40 years and it is now too late for us to be together for long. Don't have regrets. Time waits for no one. Reach out to those you haven't seen for awhile. If you truly love one another, it will seem like yesterday. Love and share your lives while you still can. No regrets. Only love."

I posted the above on Facebook on January 26, 2014.  One month later, in the early morning of February 25, 2014, one Musketeer has left this world for the next.  

Besides my family and my dog, Julie Parson was the first love of my life - like only children can forge bonds, she became my best friend, my playmate, the one with whom I shared elementary school, those first awkward attempts at playing sports, learning to read, hating math, growing up, getting crushes on guys, and dreams.  At that age, there are always dreams.  

I met Julie in elementary school in the first grade.  Two 6 year olds who had never been in a classroom before.  I was shy and Julie was shy.  I don't remember how we first met but quite likely it was in a corner somewhere, mutually attempting to hide from everyone else.   I dragged out my old class photos from elementary school to see exactly what years Julie and I were together in the same room because neither one of us could remember.  The results: only first grade under Mrs. Minnick and second grade under Mrs. Cole.  It seemed like there should have been more.  I do think it's odd how you can be with a teacher for a whole year and barely remember it.  Of course, memory is funny.  I look at these photos and though I barely remember being in Mrs. Cole's class, I can still remember the color of the jumper Julie is wearing for her second grade photo - kind of darkish maroon with light blue stitching.  Yes, memory is funny.  

Julie and I became like sisters.  I remember always wanting to play with her, go back to her house, or go to the pool when I knew she would be there.  Hers was the first place where I attempted to stay overnight, where we set up some sleeping bags on her enclosed back porch.  It was dark and peaceful except for the crickets loudly chirping outside, but I was a momma's baby and ended up crying in the middle of the night.  Julie's mom came down and called my parents.  I thought Dad would be mad when he picked me up, but he wasn't.  

There was a little creek that ran beside Julie's house and Julie and I would go down and swing around on huge vines that hung from the pine trees.  I loved that.  Meena, Julie's German Shepherd, and later Tilly, were always with us, too.  We both loved animals and the outdoors and apparently that never changed.  Up until the end, Julie and her husband Don kept a garden and counted Monarch butterflies.  Their back room was covered with photos of butterflies and in every window there were bird feeders to watch.  

At my house it wasn't much different.  We would go back to the swamp and catch crayfish and box turtles, look for praying mantis egg casings in the briers or monarch chrysalis on the milk weed, go to the stream and dig up clay and mold it into things or to the pond and watch the fish, or to the woods, well, just to play in the woods.  Evie, my Weimaraner, would always go with us to guard against the vicious pheasants that always scared us when they would suddenly flush out of the field.  Eve would point them when we got close so Julie and I knew there was one lurking about.  Now you don't see them much anymore.  The pheasants or the turtles, that is.  Evie, my faithful and loving companion, is long gone.  Times change.

Julie and I liked the same TV shows, like Star Trek, Dark Shadows and Alias Smith and Jones.  We had crushes on the same TV personalities, like Quentin Collins and Hannible Heyes, although Julie had a crush on Spock while I idolized Captain Kirk.  We shared the same books, notably James Blish's Star Trek series.  When we played together, it was usually "veterinarians," where we would bandage our stuffed animals up and take care of them.  We both wanted to be veterinarians when we grew up, but neither of us made it.  We both loved our dogs and they were our best friends when we weren't together.   

In fourth grade, Julie and my duo became a trio.  I don't know where Maria's family lived before they moved to West Hanover Township, although I know she just told me recently.  Like I said, memory is a funny thing.  Our new threesome ran together and shared whatever we could.  At one point we were even on the same softball team together.  I thought it was great but I don't think Julie ever liked sports.  If you look at our team photo from West Hanover's Seminoles softball team, Julie looks like she is being tortured.  Maria played for awhile but found other sports she preferred, like swimming.  But even though we were finding things that we liked doing apart from each other, our friendship remained solid.  Recess has a way of keeping friendships forged.

But then came junior high, and later high school.  We were separated.  Julie said she went home from school our first day of junior high and told her mother she wasn't going back because we weren't in any classes together.  Her mother thought differently.  We were never in the same classes, never the same lunch, never the same anything.  At that age we were too young to know what a precious thing our friendship was, and we all grew apart.  It wouldn't have taken much effort to stay friends - we all lived within a square mile of each other.  I suppose at that age we start to become more self-centered or lazy or something.  I'm not really sure.  We all found other friends, ones that we saw more often, ones with whom we attended classes or church.  Maria and Julie stayed in the same classes until high school, Maria and I in the same church until then as well, and then we all just sort of drifted away from each other.  I don't even have Julie or Maria's high school senior photos.

Julie got married soon after high school, a mistake as it would later turn out, with the exception of the births of her two children.  Maria and I went to college and then grad school, leaving the area for awhile, although Maria was first to return, now a doctor.  I returned in 1990.  None of us knew where each other was, although I was pretty sure Julie still lived in her childhood home. I didn't try to contact her. Although I thought about both Julie and Maria often, we were no longer in elementary school.  By then we were different people with different lives.  I assumed that childhood friendships were only good during childhood.  

Julie had remarried in the 1980s to a wonderful man she called her "soul mate."  The two obviously share a deep respect and love with each other that even death will not destroy.  She worked a few different jobs but settled into a position with West Hanover Township, which is where my sister ran across her and found out that she had cancer.  At the time I was working in the Hershey Medical Center as a chaplain and after my sister told me, I tried to contact her.  My calls were not returned.  I supposed Julie might have felt as awkward as I.  About a year later Julie's sister Pam  contacted me and told me Julie's cancer progressed and to try again to call Julie.  Apparently, Julie did want to see me.   

I felt a little awkward when I went to Julie and Don's home, a place that appeared pretty much as I remembered from 40 years earlier, even though Julie and Don had added to the place.  I wasn't sure what I was going to say until I saw her there, in a hospital bed in a sunny back room surrounded by windows and bird feeders and pictures of butterflies.  Nothing had changed.  Our friendship was as real as it was when we were 6 years old.  The thin and frail person before me was still Julie, my wonderful and absolutely beautiful friend.  Though her eyes were sunken they were bright and alive.  Her smile warmed my heart and took me back to a simpler time.  It was as if 40 years had never occurred.  Her hug and kiss on the cheek were the seal of a friendship that would never die, and never could.  

Yes, Julie and I had lived almost our whole lives apart.  I guess that is the funny part about love.  Our lives consist of the physical, the palpable, the concrete, real in the material aspect,  and born of our physical selves while in touch with our physical surroundings.  We think that love is as well, but it is not.  Love is intangible, impossible to define, ethereal, born of the soul, emanating from the heart of the Creator.  Love is not defined by our limited ability to explain or understand it.  Love is not limited by time.  True love never dies.  Because our English language is limited, we often equate the word "love" with romantic love, but there are so many more types of love.  The Greeks had three words for love, but even those have limitations.  A love born of friendship is a love that is deep and abiding, able to withstand the passage of years, and is forgiving of the foibles of character that make us drift apart and remain apart for too long.  It is able to survive our fear, our cynicism, and the things in life that change us and tend to harden our hearts toward others, and even toward ourselves.  It is accepting of what we've experienced and what we've become.  Above all else, this kind of love is supportive, trusting, honest and uncomplicated.  It doesn't ask why people drift apart, but simply rejoices when they are reunited.  True love survives.

Although Julie taught me many things when we were small, about trust and joy and friendship, perhaps this lesson of love is the most important.  Julie doesn't know she taught me these things and I'm sure she never intended to.  Sometimes lessons just happen.  And although I never reached out to her in all the years we were apart, she was always a part of me, and that I always knew.  That's because I knew that childhood friendship, that innocent love, was always there.  I missed that friendship and love, but I didn't know how much until I re-experienced it, and now have to leave it once more.  But I know that love does not die and one day, in the not so distant future, I will see Julie again, and that innocent childhood friendship will once again live, just as Julie does now, in the realm of the unseen and ethereal, in the realm of love and of God.

  

Thank you, Pam, for urging me to contact you sister.
Thank you, Don, for allowing me into your home and for loving Julie like no other.   
Julie, I'll see you again, old friend.  I love you.  Thank you for your friendship and your love.