I Miss My Friend

Lots of things have been happening lately to make me think of Rita and miss her like crazy.  Our wedding anniversaries are a week apart.  Her's is on Valentine's Day so I thought of her then and mine was yesterday.  While Pat and I were looking for a place to have lunch we passed by about a million places that she and I used to eat at and they brought back so many fun memories.  She likes everything foodwise and I like nearly nothing.  She introduced me to so many new food places that I would have never tried by myself.  I would rarely try something new but at least I went into the new places.  Every waitress in town hated us because we took up a table for 3+ hours at a time and lost money for them.  Pat chose Soup Plantation to eat at and halfway through our lunch, Scott, Rae and Wallers came in and sat with us.  In 20 years we have NEVER run into the Schroeders around town unplanned despite living about 2 miles away from them most of that time.  We had a good time reminiscing.  Recently I was asked to be in charge of our stake youth conference.  I immediately thought of all the things Rita and I have done together in our church callings and assignments.  When we first met I was asked to direct and choreograph a stake musical and I was petrified of the directing part.  I begged her to help me and be my stage manager so I could have her by my side all the time.  When I got called to be stake girls' camp director(what?!) I drug her up there with me to do all the music.  When she got called to be stake young womens' president she asked me to be her counselor.  We were both called to be parents in a stake youth conference along with our husbands and then our "families" got pitted against each other in all the competitions.  I'm extremely competitive (in a fun and nice way:)) and she is not at all.  One of her "sons" was my real son, Tanner, who was extremely tall, strong, buff, hot, oops! I digress.  So they ended up killing us in all the competitions using my own flesh and blood to do it!  How I wish she was here to help me with youth conference and go up with me so we could have more of these wonderful memories.  My only daughter has decided to run for class president at her school.  We have NEVER had anyone do anything like this before.  I know Rita has experience in this and I need her to help me with posters and slogans and general campaigning tips.  There are so many times recently I have wanted to tell her something or ask her something and she can't hear me or at least can't answer me.  It has made me treasure and appreciate our friendship even more than I did before.  There is no one else on this earth who is more equally yoked with me, spiritually, academically, emotionally or just personally than she was.  I have female relatives and other acquaintances that I love and respect but no one is "Rita".  I will never have another friend like her and I'm feeling the pain of that pretty badly right now.  I miss you Rita Mesqueeta:(