Happy Birthday

I have a best friend. It was her 181st birthday yesterday. I celebrated by spending the whole day with my Mom. I didn’t get my friend a gift, though. She died at 56 years old on March 6, 1888. That was 125 years ago. She never got to know me, but I feel like I’ve know her for quite some time.

(2008)

“I am a loner”. This idea has been lurking in the dark cellars of my mind ever since I can remember. It has made friends with “I’m not pretty”, “everyone hates me”, and “I’m never getting married” (although that last one has recently been completely and gloriously obliterated). Growing up, it seemed like every time I made a “friend”, they would eventually tell me I wasn’t popular enough for the plans they had for their future, non-loner, wonderful lives. They had big, big plans. I guess that was my problem. I never planned that I wouldn’t be a loner. So I read. I read a lot. And books became my friends. Consequently, I believe this lack of plans has led to my absolute happiness.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable. - My Friend

Recently, the day marking five years since my Dad passed away came and went. No one called. No one texted. No one commented on my status on Facebook (because apparently that counts as having felt love now). I told Brian I was sad that I don’t have one girlfriend that, when thinking about a big moment in one of our lives, would call me.  No one thinks of me as the person that would be there for whatever they need –just to talk. I read a book about my friend that day, and I felt transported to a place where someone listened, and wanted to comfort and encourage me.

 I remember being happy every time I heard another one of my brothers was getting married. I was always excited to have another sister join the ranks of my sisterly-estrogen-lacking life. But those sisters already had sisters…real sisters. They had what I sometimes found myself lacking. Enter: my deep dark loner secret. Even my secret had friends. So, I found a wonderful sister and best friend in my Mom, and I read.

(Orchard House, 2008)

Then truth breaks in, with all of her matter-of-factness:

I actually do have friends (writers like to contradict themselves). Another fact: I am also a historian, and all of these friends I’m referring to are dead. This brings me back to the birthday girl.

Louisa May Alcott was born in a home full of love and hope and transcendentalist change. Her mother was a humble woman with a temper and an enormous capacity for love. Her father, although confidently referring to himself as “the Savior” on multiple occasions, was a man of deep thought and desire for purity. People viewed both of her parents as exactly what they were. They shunned Bronson, and in so doing, left Abigail lonely and all but forgotten. Louisa had her mother’s dark complexion and chestnut hair, and Bronson believed these features were signs of the devil. His fair skin and hair the color of lemons were, according to Bronson, what made up the character of the Gods.

(Orchard House, 2008)

The family was close to destitute until Louisa finally gained the praise of her father by writing the only book that the uneducated attribute to her name. Little Women was a success from the start, and little women everywhere have quickly made it a part of their growing up experiences. Timeless describes her well.  Most of her life was spent depressed and torn between the life she was told to live and the life she wanted to live. She suffered greatly, and she rejoiced superbly. She dedicated herself to the well-being of her family, and was the epitome of selflessness in all she did.

Over the past year, I have come to know this woman a little better than the first time I picked up Little Women, just because it was one of those books I wanted to have said I finished. Now, it has become so much more. Louisa is real to me. She is my friend, and has filled a void that no one else could. She is not just a character in history, or a name everybody “knows”.

You might think I’m crazy (especially those of you who know of my fascination with my other dead friends). But this is me. My friends are deeper than the spoken word. They are deeper than “friends” on facebook or “followers” on instagram. They are stories and music and feeling and reactions and mistakes and emotion. They are love and discovery and finding out who I really am.

Happy birthday to one of the best girlfriends a girl could ask for. See you on the other side.