It’s about people who are put in my life—Sharon was that person—my best friend ever. You know the kind. For over forty years, we talked weekly, but even if we didn’t, we would just continue as if there had been no interruption at all in our conversation.

It was in the late 70’s, and I worked at Hygain Electric. I was the manager of a department that operated the Cottage Program. We would bring in 100 housewives and train them to weld two components—switches and coils. We had 50 women on each component. One lady, Vivian Martin, trained all 100 housewives. We delivered the parts to each woman’s home. They would call when they were done,, and I would send a driver to pick up the finished parts and take them the new ones.  They were paid per unit, and I paid them once a month. They were subcontractors, meaning they had a job, got paid, and could stay at home with their kids. The housewives were tickled to death.

At that time, the women would call in, and I would help them with whatever questions they had. Sharon was a woman I really connected with, even though I never met her.

If their work wasn’t up to standard, they were not allowed to remain employed. I had to let them go and hire new women to replace them.

The boss embezzled company money, and 500 Hygain employees, all 100 women, including myself, lost their jobs.

Three months later, I finally found a new job at Square D Circuit Breakers Company. When they were taking me on an initial tour, a woman who had worked at Hygain saw me, waved, and shouted my name. After the tour, the executive asked if I knew that woman and said, “I’ll bet you know a lot of our workers because we hired many of the Hygain employees. It was there that I met Sharon in person. I had only previously communicated with her on the phone. We had the phone connection, then, with eye-to-eye contact—that was the moment our friendship started and grew. From that day forward, she was my best friend. She was my safe place, especially when I was married to my abusive husband.

I miss her so much. My joy was gone when she passed in 2021. I no longer had that person to pick up the phone, or stop by, and I’ve never found anyone to replace her.

We knew so much intimate information about each other.  Sharon’s life was crushed when her husband, her high school boyfriend, divorced her after 25 years. They built a big home and went on a trip to Hawaii for their anniversary, and when they got home, Sharon found out he was having an affair with a woman in Florida—an old high school crush.

Because we spent so much time together, my husband, Jack, said I was a Lesbian, but it wasn’t like that at all. We were just great friends. It seemed when I was up, she was at her lowest, and when I was at my lowest, she was at her highest. We kept each other alive. We would drag each other out of that hole all the time. Nobody else in my life did that for me. She, likewise.

Her daughter Amy calls me Mama Jude. Sharon, her sister Marilyn, and I were all good friends, but Sharon and I were best friends.  Sharon sold Pampered Chef, and her sister and I worked for her. We had so much fun. I recently found out Marilyn has Alzheimer’s. So sad.  Sharon and Marilyn are going to be buried together—their tombstone is engraved and ready for Marilyn when her time comes.

Amy lives in the house that Marilyn and Sharon’s parents built and lived in. I go to the cemetery where she’s buried and wish she were here so I could have a cup of coffee with her. She always had a pot of coffee on and a box of Franzia Chardonnay in the refrigerator.

Sharon was, you know, one of those people who are just put together, and then there’s me. Sharon was perfect. For example, she would buy cherry tomatoes and line them up in a perfectly straight little row, but she never made me feel as if I was less than her.

She LOVED Neil Diamond—the love of her life. She had a poster of Neil’s first concert on the door of her broom closet. We went to a Neil Diamond concert in Omaha, and Amy rolled up the poster and took it for Neil to sign—security stopped us and wouldn’t let her take it in.

Sharon died in the home she was raised in at the age of 73 from a blood clot after neck surgery.

We had a third friend, Linda Franz, who lived in Chandler, AZ. She was blond and so photogenic, and wore bright, pastel, bold colors. She was extravagant, and Sharon and I were the farm girls. Linda said we were like the Golden Girls. We met some Japanese women in a hot tub on one of our trips to visit Linda—We had so much fun laughing together.

On another subject, one regret I have in my life is that I didn’t ask my WWII Veteran dad anything about the war—we were never allowed to watch anything violent on TV, so I thought the subject was taboo. But our ten-year-old neighbor girl came to the house and interviewed him about his war experience, and it was published in the local paper. Mom said he was thrilled. I regret I never asked.

(Told at the age of 80 years and 120 days)