Our Visit to Cookie

I'm part of a group of 11 women who were schoolmates many, many years ago. Some of us literally were in 1st grade together. We grew up in a small town where our graduating class only had 100 students, so everyone knew everyone else. As we became adults and most of us moved away, years might pass without us being in contact. But in 1987, with our kids mostly grown and gone, we organized a slumber party weekend. We had a blast, and ever since then, we've gotten together the third weekend of October. We meet in various places, but more often than anywhere else, we rent a beachhouse in Galveston.

Since we've been having our Coquette reunions, most of our children have married, and many of us have experienced the joy of grandbabies. Most of us are now thrilled to be retired. We've lost husbands through both divorce and death, and some of us have remarried. One of us has lost a son. Two have survived breast cancer. We've felt frustrated and helpless as our parents have aged and passed away. What we hadn't faced until now, was losing one of us.

With the advent of email, we began to stay in even closer contact, and now communicate almost daily. When it became apparent this summer, that Cookie's prognosis was not good, as many of us as could, drove up to Forney and spent a wonderful 2 hours with her.