Goodbye....

Today I said goodbye to my other Mom......Alice House....
This week my Best Friend's Mom passed away, whom I called "Mom" for many years. Unfortunately, am very sad to say I haven't seen her for 16 yrs.
Our families met back when I was about 5 yrs old, when we moved from Tennessee to California. My father took a preaching job in a little called Delhi, and down the hwy in another little town was a place called Livingston, where another preacher lived, Chuck and his wife Teddie House and their daughter Kellie, who was the same age as me, who became the sister I never had.
Our families became very close friends, even when we moved from congregation to congregation through the years, sometimes many miles away from each other. But we always got together for "family" reunions. We even had a day set aside at Christmas that we spent together and exchanged gifts and spent the day together as "Family". Kellie and I always kept in contact when we weren't close enough to see each other. A few years after we graduated from HS, I moved in with them for a wile until we decided to go to College together up in Portland Oregon. We went for a yr, and our first summer back I met Lee, so I didn't go back with her to College.
About a year passed and things happened and unfortunately our families split apart. Then her parents split apart.
After moving out here to MO 7 yrs ago, my parents ran into them at a funeral one year while visiting my brother and sister-in-law in California. My mom and Teddie reunited and kept in contact even after she moved out to Mississippi with another daughter (whom they adopted when we were about 11 or 12??) 4 or 5 years ago, but Teddie hasn't been in good health for some time now, and had rapidly declined in the past few months.
I got a call from my mom on the way to work Tuesday morning that Teddie had passed away and broke my heart. So many good memories......
I rode down to Memphis with my parents, where she passed away, to attend her funeral, and today was her birthday......it was very emotional day for all of us.......but......I got to see my Best Friend again today, which brought back many good memories, some I don't remember cuz there were SO many :) but I cherish the ones I do remember. I wished it would have been under other circumstances, but it wasn't. But I am SO Thankful!