Best friends through thick and thin

Ask a woman who her best friend is, and she'll blurt out a name without even thinking about it.

But there's a lot of meaning in that instinct and in those simple spoken syllables. They're born from someone seeing you on your worst day and not caring that you're a foul-mouthed basket case. They're born from years of honesty, even on subjects that would make others think poorly of you. When men leave, best friends really are there through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer.

Ask best friends what keeps them together, and the answers are pretty much the same. They've been there for each other. They can level with each other. They've known each other a lifetime.

And the dynamics, which develop over time, are often the same. One's the talker and one hangs back. It's difficult to get a complete story out of either of them because they know it so well, they assume everyone else does, too.

But their stories are all different, each one with a unique facet interesting to an outsider but so much a part of their joined lives. Here are four of those stories -- much abbreviated -- from eight women at different stages of life.

Clara 'Lucille' Daniels and Mildred 'Midge' Wilson

It was typical. Midge had overdone it again, this time mowing the lawn in the Mississippi Valley summer heat and then collapsing into a chair for two days, nearly immobile with heat stroke, her husband baffled over what to do. And then there was Lucille, just like she'd always been, driving her friend to the hospital and sitting with her through the dementia and depression. Midge was refusing to eat, clamping her mouth shut like the petulant child she can be, even at age 74.

And finally, Lucille had enough.

"Now Midge," she said slowly, distinctly. "You know you've got to eat."

Midge remembers that day as the one when she started to get better.

They've known each other for so long that they communicate more with laughter and meaningful glances than plain old words. Like when Lucille explains that people mistake her for Midge and then looks disapprovingly over the top of her glasses at her friend.

Midge acts offended. "You act like it's a crime to be Midge!"

"Sometimes it is," Lucille says, then turns to her guest. "She can get you in trouble."

"But I'll get you out of it, too," Midge is quick to point out, and the two break into peals of infectious laughter.

It's impossible to get the story of their friendship in one coherent tale -- they try to stay on track for a few minutes before going off onto inevitable tangents.

It began 67 years ago, with infant Lucille lying on a bed at her parents' farmhouse in Egypt Mills and 7-year-old Midge, her cousin, trying to pull her to the edge for a closer look.

There was Sunday school every week and family visits and long bicycle rides the eight miles from Cape Girardeau to Egypt Mills and back. Later, there were romances and jobs -- Lucille as a nurse's aide and Midge as a factory quality checker and line operator.

And then there were children. And more children -- eight born between 1948 and 1965. Midge had six and adopted two more and Lucille had two sons, all raised in each other's homes, impossible for the untrained eye to tell which child belonged to which watchful mother.

There were trips, to Washington, D.C., the Bahamas, Niagara Falls. And then the grandchildren started coming.

So Lucille and Midge don't know when they became best friends in addition to being cousins. They just know what it means.

It means that, when Midge found out in 1979 she had multiple sclerosis, Lucille was the first person she cried with. And when Lucille had an ovary removed in 1974, it was Midge standing over her bed, hands shaking as she attempted to administer an iron supplement, Lucille's teenage son shaking and crying next to her.

"Give me that," Lucille said, snatching the bottle away. "Ya'll aren't worth 15 cents."

Today, Midge explains she wasn't used to seeing her friend sick, because Lucille always took care of everyone else.

And that's what being best friends means to them.

"We can argue and fuss," Lucille says, patting Midge's arm. "But we always get back together."

Martha Dillon and Teresa Haubold

Martha slept fitfully on the unfamiliar bed at Southeast Missouri Hospital. There were the typical hospital interruptions and the constant, frightening awareness that her premature baby was rooms away, fighting for life.

The light came on. As Martha squinted against the brightness, miraculously, she saw her best friend and hairstyling client wheeled into the room by an orderly.

Teresa had just given birth two days late, on Aug. 9, 1973, and was wide awake and ready to talk.

"Martha," she whispered. "I gave a big push, and my hairpiece fell out."

They met in 1970 -- Teresa's husband knew Martha's former roommate from back home in Portageville, Teresa became Martha's client at Castillion Hair Fashions in Cape Girardeau and, after a month, those tenuous connections blossomed into the best of friendships.

But they say their friendship was more than that.

It was divine guidance.

It's easy to believe, watching Teresa and Martha sitting next to each other, sometimes barely able to force out a story because they're laughing so hard, other times looking for signals about what to say and what not to say to just a casual acquaintance.

It's a friendship born of years of sitting together in the salon, in the coffee shop, in hospital rooms. When Teresa and her husband returned to Southeast Missouri after a decade away, she and Martha picked up where they left off. It's that way now, too, if they go a week or so without having the chance to talk.

They attribute their friendship's longevity to sharing the same values and the same faith in God, even though they don't attend the same church. That's also what's helped them keep each other going through the rough times -- Martha's premature baby, Teresa's mastectomy in her mid-30s, aging family members that require care today.

"The things that get you through are your faith and your friends," Teresa said. "There is consolation in knowing you have friends who will step in and teach the values and love your family like no one else will."

Teresa is 53, lives in Cape Girardeau and works with special needs children. Martha is 58, lives in Jackson and is a salon manager. They say they'll be friends forever, but they won't grow old together.

"We're not getting old," Martha explained.

But they do admit to looking at their daughters, Heather and Stephanie, and reminiscing about when they were in their 20s, worrying with hairpieces and talking about their kids.

Stephanie Ellinger and Heather Mitten

It was a scene played out by so many Cape Girardeau girls for so many years: The general giddiness of the school year's end combined with the new fashions at West Park Mall.

But while other girls bounced from store to store, felt the light fabrics of summer and sprayed perfume samples, Stephanie was oddly quiet. In an anxious moment in the parking lot, months of worry tumbled out.

"You're graduating, I'll still be in high school, you're going to college and I'm afraid we won't be friends anymore," Stephanie blurted.

Heather was silent for a moment before she leaned over. She spoke carefully. "We will never not be friends."

Of course, not all daughters of best friends become best friends. There's no genetic glue that bonds the next generation.

So although their mothers were best friends and the girls were cared for the same hospital nursery, it took Heather and Stephanie until high school to find their friendship. They made a remarkable discovery, no doubt horrifying to teenagers: They're almost exactly like their mothers.

And knowing each other made high school a far better experience. For instance, when a misguided stylist tried an unusual "up 'do" for Heather's prom, Stephanie's mom fixed it.

"She looked like she had itty bitty cinnamon rolls all over her head," Stephanie said.

And they saw each other through the turmoil of high-school romance.

"You really get into a guy and let your friend go by the wayside, and then you break up and an hour later she knocks on the door," Heather said. "She must have sensed that my heart was getting broken into 15 pieces. She didn't go, 'You didn't talk to me for awhile because you were so into him.'"

These days, at age 29, the romances are marriages and the talk has turned from tragic hairdos to their children's triumphs. They have exhausting schedules: Stephanie living in Scott City and working as a parent educator and Heather living in Cape Girardeau and working as a cell phone account agent. But schedules and distance aren't even considerations for best friends.

Less than five minutes after her positive pregnancy test two years ago, Stephanie was on the phone to Heather. They camped out at the hospital through each other's deliveries. "Having children, she saw things I will not ever go into," said Heather, mother of two.

For them, that's really what friendship is about: No faking.

"Sometimes I think it is exhausting with some friends because you have to think of topics and skirt around topics," Heather said.

Stephanie was more direct. "You can look your worst."

Sarah Scheniman and Jalana Johnson

There's that magical time of day for girls -- just after school but before homework, before dinner, before church if it's a Wednesday. The perfect time to sit on grandma's front porch, drink Kool-Aid and consider the seven or eight decades or so that lie ahead.

"I want to be a doctor, get married and have one girl," proclaims Jalana, 9, fingering her charm necklace in the absent manner she's picked up in the week since her mother bought it. The word "double" is spelled out in silver.

Sarah's says "trouble," tough to believe considering her shy smile and fairy-blonde hair tucked behind scrubbed ears. "I want to graduate high school, buy a yellow Mustang convertible, and then I want to be a doctor and get married and have a boy," she says with the bravado of a 10-year-old.

But will they still be friends? "I hope so," whispers Jalana.

It was probably simple proximity that made Sarah and Jalana best friends. Jalana's grandparents and Sarah's parents were Cape Girardeau neighbors when the two were babies. So when the family determined it was best for Jalana to live with her grandparents and attend Cape Christian School, Sarah's school, the girls' friendship became destiny.

Their lives are as intertwined as any sisters. They talk about teachers and grades -- older Sarah delivers pep talks when she thinks her younger comrade hasn't given her all. They do gymnastics in the basement and listen to country music in their bedrooms. In the summer, they swim until their fingers get pruney and take family vacations to Branson.

And then there's that persistent, blossoming interest in boys, which turns their faces red when an adult dares to pry. "I don't like the ones she likes, and she doesn't like the ones I like," Jalana quickly explained.

They're not so harmonious on everything. Like any self-respecting siblings, they argue, too. That doesn't worry Jalana's grandmother, who understands well best friendships and young girls.

"They argue about everything, but five minutes later, they're back together," said Joann Leadbetter, chuckling while the girls nodded heartily.

Arguments or no, they can explain their friendship in rapid-fire style.

"It's just, like, boring to go places by yourself and have no one to play with. We can't leave each other for a week," Jalana said.

"Jalana's my best friend because I've known her the longest," Sarah added.

"I'm the one who lives the closest to her."

"I can call her when I need her. When my dad had surgery, I could come over and not have my mind on it."

"You can play with your best friend instead of your parents."

"Or a doll."

Heidi Hall is the managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.