My Friend Nichole

I remember my first car well. It was a yellow Dodge Caravan, given to me on the day of my high school graduation. My grandpa wasn't going to be needing it. So I inherited it. It may not have looked cool, but it was the very definition of teenage independence. I had started attending church a few years before I got the car. At church, I met a girl, one year younger than I (nothing now, but in high school, a year's difference and someone may as well be an alien or a person living in a different country.) Nichole and I became fast friends. We both enjoyed the normal teenage stuff-burgers and fries, boys, studying for math tests, etc.-but we also loved drama and making other people laugh at any expense, and we loved long theological conversations. Nichole was a candle-lighter in my wedding; I was a bride's maid in hers. We remained friends for 17 years. I spoke at Nichole's funeral last week. She was only 33. I have every confidence that we will be friends again someday, maybe even driving around in Heaven on streets of gold.