I just heard that an old and very dear friend died. It was last year, but I only heard today. Some of you probably knew Larry Megill — especially those of my local friends. He and my dear dear friend Carrie were Sunday school teachers at All Souls; they also delivered Meals on Wheels.

But that isn’t what I will remember best about Larry. I don’t know where to start, really: Larry & Carrie were such an integral part of my early adult life. I met them when I was 18, just after I met my future husband. Larry was Glen’s friend since childhood.

So when Larry & Carrie always a compound noun, always the two of them joined since that first meeting… returned from California, it was only natural they move in with us, into the big house Glen was renting in north Tulsa.

Carrie & I were best friends from the beginning. We got a job together — counting orange china spoons at World Bazaar. Really. We bonded over inventory. After work, we’d come home and the guys would have made something to eat. We’d watch late night TV (Gaylord Sartain, in his early Mazeppa days) and laugh. That’s a fraction of what I remember.

Playing bridge at the house L&C moved into. Larry winning the ‘how many grapes can you stuff in your mouth?’ contest. Larry helping me bait my hook in one of the many fishing trips we all took. Larry teasing Glen about his nerdiness (even then…: tell me again about why my face is upside down in my ice cream spoon, Glen). Larry playing guitar as we sat in the living room among the sculpture L&C made.

Larry cooking, Larry laughing. Carrie & I making something to eat in one of the many kitchens we shared over the years. Carrie and I falling off my motorcycle, spinning out in the gravel by the green house. Larry & Carrie holding the third redhead, tiny Miranda ~ So many memories…

The friends of our youth are irreplaceable. And the friends we retain from that youth are doubly precious: they share not only our youth, but move with us into the uncertain darkness of middle age. Larry & Carrie made that journey. What was important to all four of us when we were young remained so, and any meeting or email was another bright strand in the web.

It seems such a short time ago that Larry and I became friends on FB, an improvement over the letters neither family is good at writing. I hadn’t seen him on in a while, but didn’t worry about it. Time slips past like a jetstream… Who really knows when the past separates from the now? Just yesterday (really) my sister & I drove past the old house — it looks good.

Just like memories do. I will miss you, Larry ~