The Greatest Gift by Liz Flaherty #WordWranglers

Our Extension Homemakers Club met Tuesday night for the first time since October. Ten of the eleven who comprise our group were there in my living room. While a few combinations among the ten are probably BFFs, I think most of us are just club friends. We volunteer together, sew together, work fundraisers together, and share two-hour meetings once a month when there's no pandemic going on.

But at this meeting, we talked and laughed and shared. We sang the happy birthday song to the club president, who has a March birthday, dispensed the Secret Sister gifts that had been languishing since October and ate pistachio cake I baked a little too long but was still good. And green. Since we won't meet again before Easter, I used St. Patrick's Day plates and Easter napkins. 

In that couple of hours, we shared the mourning of one whose daughter passed away in February. We got to listen to stories about her told by a person who loved her more than life. In the kitchen, another member and I talked about the grief that still shreds her over the death of a dear friend. We talked about siblings, about growing up with them, about Covid and how it's affected us. About caring for parents. We wondered about how things will be going forward. Will our county have its fair? Will we have achievement night? 

Mostly, regardless of the subjects of conversation, at that meeting we got to be just a bunch of girlfriends having a good time. 

There's no beginning or end to this story. No excitement or life-changing aha moments. But it's kind of a microcosm, isn't it? Of us as writers. Of our books that are written mainly by women. About women. For women. For girlfriends. It's how we laugh and talk and share and grieve. And hold each other up.

For me, at least, at this certain age in this most uncertain of times, it's what my  non-financial bottom line is in writing books. Although my titles are love stories--even the ones that lean more toward Women's Fiction--much of the reason I write what I do is that it's time with girlfriends. Other writers, readers, and the women in the stories.

Make no mistake--I love the guy I've spent the last half-century with with every wrinkled and sagging fiber of my being. I love starting and ending every day with him. But I don't count on him for everything--sometimes, I just need to spend time with friends.