Domestic Doris and Me

Back to the jam... A story of friendship.

It was June of 1988 and I was pregnant with my second child. This time around I decided to join a local maternity exercise class. After a few classes I noticed her follow me right past my home. About the third time this happened, I was getting out of my car in the driveway and saw her across the street. She quickly hopped out of her car yelling, “YOU LIVE HERE?” and pointed down the street, “I LIVE THERE!!!!” “WE SHOULD BE FRIENDS!” Mind you, I was a VERY friendly person so this was the ultimate gift., to be on the receiving end of another friendly person, despite it being slightly creepy. We’d laugh about that a lot over the years.

Peggy was a new step-mom and pregnant with her first child. From this point forward we did everything together. I was 27, she was 26 and my first “best friend” in a new city. We lived in a sleepy community, a modest neighborhood, in our first married homes. I was six weeks further along than Peg and I’ll never forget her placing my baby girl on her big belly, smiling her huge smile, staring in amazement at what was to come. I had a boy and a girl and in just over 5 weeks, baby Sarah would be born and she would become best friends with my Brynn.

There was never a day we didn’t connect. From talking, walking to each other’s homes, learning how to cook (she called me Domestic Deb and herself Domestic Doris because she was a career girl), “new” to staying home, and I was about a year ahead of her. Peg would often bake “healthy”muffins and leave them on our porch with a note saying “Love, The Muffin Lady aka Domestic Doris.” She became the “healthy cook” and I got on a roll of healthy cooking, yet still shared my love of comfort food. Our favorite traditions were canning jam at the beginning of Summer and making fudge at Christmas. We saved our jam for the holidays and added in our repertoire of fudge as gifts to friends and family. To this day I have the variation of our famous fudge written in Peg’s handwriting on the stained page of my Betty Crocker cookbook. It was our first time together in the kitchen. Both traditions lasted almost 10 years.

Peggy was my first encounter with someone that outwardly loved Jesus. She grabbed every opportunity to talk to me about her new-found passion and commitment. Life wasn’t always easy and we shared heavy things together. A great friendship is like that. Peg was deeply aware of her privileged upbringing and aware of how equally and potentially miserable life could be despite. While the children played, we would talk for hours on my front porch about alcoholism, addiction, abortion, marriage, family, immigration, disappointment, commitment and love. What I learned from her was a deep sense of forgiveness. Forgiveness for imperfect parents and forgiveness for her own choices to live a wild life for a period of time. I saw a person full of humility seeking a simple life of faith. I was intrigued and she knew I needed her joy.

We took baby steps and were welcomed into a church marriage group in her home. This lead to both my husband and I accepting Christ as our savior and the joy of a church community. For the years following we would sit in the front row and worship together as our husbands played on the worship team.

There were everydays, party days, park days and laughter. There was so much laughter. Some of my favorite times were dancing to her husband’s rock band as they played for the annual 4th of July event in his hometown and hanging out with his big, gregarious, loving and welcoming family. We’d pack up the car with blankets, chairs and a big ice chest. The kids would do their running around and we’d eat, chat, and dance. Peg’s in-laws felt like family and I loved it.

Peg and her husband went onto have two sons, and we would have another son. Our younger sons, Michael and Ian, would also become close friends. During these years together we enjoyed a whole neighborhood group of mom friends, passed down children’s clothes, grew our parties and playdates, and connected the dots for our children and each other.

But back to the jam. The years went by as we moved out of the neighborhood. Life changed for all of us. Children grew older, began new schools and activities, our daughters struggled with the changes, and our days together pivoted. We were friends in a beautiful season that was made perfect by our friendship. We had been glued at the hip and in the following 10 years we floated in and out of each others lives devoted to the challenges and commitments of marriage, older children, work and life.

In the fall of 2009, our youngest sons would end up together at an art high school over an hour away. During this time Peg’s life journey would change drastically. I will never forget the days we drove carpool with a van full of theater kids and how much I wished she could have been a part of that.

In the Spring of 2009 we would find out that our beloved friend, my Domestic Doris, was diagnosed with uterine cancer. I was devastated but felt that God had called us back into her family’s life for a purpose. We might not have had the chance, like our girls did, to come back around and be closer than ever, but I had the chance to tell her how much I loved her and our years together.

I had long discovered that between the plum and peach jam, the plum had won me over in a peanut butter sandwich and I had convinced Peg that it truly was the best p,b and j we had ever tasted. I had even convinced her that it was a weight-loss program. All the years of our children splashing in baby pools, floating in our dough-boy, sliding down plastic slides, swinging on swings, playing happily as we chatted away, sitting on porches, sharing tea over an intense conversation, laying on a blanket with our babies at the park, legs wrapped around buckets full of pits and fruit, cracking jokes while making fudge, celebrating life events, worshiping together in church, and so much more. These were the best years of our life.

Peg entered heaven the morning of Good Friday in 2010. I go back to our time together and reflect on the love we had for each other and for our families. I was able to be with her during some of her chemo treatments, and several times a week would sit with her on her bed. She went through all the emotions, yet always had a strong sense of her Father around her. As the time grew near family and friends would gather, pray and worship in her living room. All the neighborhood moms were there. Daily, we prayed for a miracle.

At 49, she had done the work. Her simple view of Jesus has stayed with me all these years, as well as our sandwich. Peg forgave and was forgiven. She loved and was loved. She accepted people as they were. She was in a lot of pain near the end, yet the friend who surprised me in the grocery store with her out-loud and sudden exuberance for Jesus, is the reason I continue to want to sit in that spiritual space and know Him myself.

To end, there is a picture pressed into my heart. It’s now a picture I am very familiar with, yet I am older. When it was my turn to drive our boy’s carpool, I remember the early morning sunlight coming through the van window, illuminating Michael’s face. Peg’s baby. As I looked in my rear view mirror, I saw the gaze of pending loss. I know the stare. It hopes, clings and remembers as life is moving on all around you while your life feels frozen in time. The hardest part of it all.. was that. When you know your friend’s children are too young to lose their parent.

I eat my sandwich in remembrance of her. Death holds no sting to those who love Jesus. My addiction to plum jam came straight from a garden of friendship that I often long to get back., but instead it keeps me growing forward...

This is the friendship we passed down. The one to keep.

Next up: Forgiveness and Restoration. Something like that.