A Friendship Forged

Have you ever known the moment that you see or meet someone that they're going to be a terrific friend? That they'll be in your life for the long haul? Or maybe that they'll be in it for a short time but a profound time? Somehow you just know?
​My friendship with Brenda is like that. She's on my mind today because we're meeting later for dinner and a movie. I still remember meeting her over 35 years ago. She was the sister of someone who was interested in me and who kept writing me letters and poems and leaving them on the windshield of my car. This man and I had met but I wasn't interested at first. So he continued to write me long heartfelt letters during the downtime on his midnight shift at a full serve gas station. Then he'd leave the letters on my car secured by the windshield wipers. (he lived in an apartment overlooking the local shopping mall so would look for my car parked there or outside at work) As I write that, it sounds creepy and like stalking. But I was about 20 and flattered and it didn't seem creepy or like stalking behaviour to me at the time and well, he picked the right way to my heart...through written words. I later married him, so Brenda became my sister-in-law, then divorced him, and Brenda became a chosen sister.
But I digress. I could write lots and lots about heartwarming moments which deepened the friendship between Brenda and myself, but I want to concentrate on our first meeting.

"We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over." ~ Dr. Samuel Johnson or James Boswell (equally acclaimed to both of them as far as I can tell)

I love the above quote. It's very true. On first meeting someone, you don't always know that you'll be friends. But sometimes there's something that immediately opens your heart to them and you just know.
​All the other kindnesses cement that first instinct.
I knew that Brenda worked in the local library as her brother and a mutual friend had told me so. But I had never met her. One day in the library I had to stand in line and watched a lovely young woman working behind the desk, smiling and laughing with patrons. Everyone left smiling.  I knew this had to be Brenda. Did she have a nametag that I noticed when it was my time? I'm not sure.  She stamped my books, was super friendly and I was suddenly too shy to say anything even though I knew that she knew about me according to her brother's letters. So I hid my face behind my long hair but smiled, wished her a good day in return and skulked away. Before I reached the door, she called out, "Oh! You're Sue!" No escaping now. 
I turned around to look at the desk. Brenda stood behind it with her arms open wide. "I'm Brenda!" she said.  She melted my heart with her immediate embrace and acceptance and I knew, I just knew at that instance, that we would be friends, solid friends, no matter what.