My mom taught me how to be a good friend, how to continue being a good friend to those special few over the decades and how to make new friends who soon seem like old friends when the connection is strong and heartfelt. I knew all about her close friends and she knew all about mine, which is why it’s so nice to hear from all of them because … I don’t know … they get it. Which is to say, the warm, free-flowing musings that her friend Mireille recently sent me were wonderful. Mireille met my mom about 35 years ago when they worked together as reading teachers in Freeport. She remembers my mom’s “warm brown eyes, warm smile and impish sense of humor.” She talked about all the talking they did and how they never ran out of topics. “Did I mention..?” my mom used to say all the time and Mireille cleverly pointed that out and began a few paragraphs that way. Like this one: “And, did I mention, thousands of lunches grabbed, and relished through these many years. Lunch on the run (literally and figuratively) from Dodd; bolting into the diner, inhaling our food (and if anchovies were ordered, they were discreetly kept out of Myrna’s sight) exhaling our frustrations and aspirations vis a vis our students. Later years, more leisurely lunches (always with anchovies hidden) museum walks, nature walks, street walks, foraging for tangible goodies for pantry or body. Did I say that Myrna was an eternal, dedicated explorer? There was always a new discovery to be made somewhere on the horizon whether vicariously through books or in person, if at all possible.” Mirielle ended her anecdotes by saying what she most valued about her friendship with my mom was her connection to family and friends. “This is a difficult, lengthy concept on which to elaborate,” she wrote, “but perhaps the most fundamental in describing why Myrna was unique and special.” That and her upturned nose at the sight of anchovies, I’d add. I remember that very well, too, as my dad and I love them.