Friendship a rewarding investment for these women
In the newspaper clipping, four dark-haired women and one redhead grin confidently at the camera. It’s July 1993, and these five women have been meeting for dinner monthly since 1979. A feat so unusual that a newspaper reporter has decided to tell their story. Their smiles are big and so is their hair.
Flash forward. It’s October 2008. The same group of women. Now there’s gray hair mixed in with the dark. And soon, due to an upcoming surgery one of them will have no hair at all. But the smiles are just as wide.
In the past 29 years they’ve gone through five presidents, 10 weddings and seven divorces. They’ve endured problem teens, crappy jobs and health problems. But through it all they’ve had each other.
Their names are Jill Pestrin, Sharon Hall, Kathy Schilling, Jackie Gardner and Jeanie Buchanan. Gardner’s daughter, Stephanie Cashion, joined the group for their October dinner, and because I’m a new friend of Buchanan’s, I got to tag along.
They dine at a different restaurant each time, and this month we gathered at a long table at Luna on Spokane’s South Hill. Under twinkling lights the women laughed about the past, discussed the present and made plans for the future.
When asked what drew them together all those years ago, Schilling said, “We all hated men.” Gales of laughter swept across the table but no one disagreed. What has kept them together have been these monthly dinners. They have only one rule: “We go to dinner no matter what,” Schilling said.
Cashion recalled as a youngster she’d watch her mom get ready to go out with her friends. “I wanted to go so bad,” she said to the ladies. “I knew you guys were talking about men and sex and stuff!”
Indeed, over the years no topic has been taboo. They’ve discussed intimate details about their love lives while embarrassed waiters hovered at the edge of the table, hopelessly hooked on their tales. They’ve talked about the joys of being single and the trials of being married and vice versa.
Now the women range in age from 59 to 69, and the topics of conversation are a bit different. At this dinner mammograms, hot flashes and bone density tests dominated the discussion.
They’ve all battled health issues in recent years. As Buchanan said on her blog, “We each have something with a capitalized name: Lupus, Parkinson’s, Polycystic Kidney Disease and Breast Cancer. The fifth woman in our group has depression so we have capitalized it to Depression.”
Schilling was facing surgery for Parkinson’s in just a few days’ time. The friends got busy setting up a phone tree so they’d know how the surgery was progressing. “How many people could you call if you needed someone?” she asked me. “I have these four. I would go to these people with my life.”
Cashion said, “They’re my surrogate mothers. If something happened to my mom, I’d call one of these women instead of family members.”
As the evening grew late, memories bubbled to the surface of the conversation. “Remember our trip to Disneyland?” someone asked. And they were off, laughing at the memory of being the last guests to leave the theme park.
“How about the time we all went skinny-dipping at Jackie’s?” “Remember our Seattle trip?”
Eventually the conversation veered to grandchildren. Soft smiles lit their faces. Schilling said she pulled a muscle hula-hooping on the Wii Fitness with her granddaughter.
The moon rose and the stars appeared. Plates were cleared and glasses emptied. Soon all that was left was the rich sound of feminine laughter. Its echo wafted into the chill autumn evening and warmed those who stopped to listen.
“Ten years from now, we’ll probably be just like this,” said Schilling. The women smiled and nodded. After almost three decades of investment these friendships are yielding a rich reward.