Hail to the Victors!

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth. 

          ~Robert Southey

Here we are:  Barb, Kathy, Cindy, Jean and Donna-- after 38 years!

It has been 38 1/2 years since I graduated from the University of Michigan School of Nursing. During my 4 years at Michigan, I was lucky to have made some wonderful friends, and of those I was really lucky to have had 5 wonderful women as my room mates.  For the first time since graduation so long ago, five of us were able to get together for a reunion this past weekend. As you can imagine, after all those years we had some catching up to do! And I suspect each of us wondered a little whether after all this time we'd still feel the incredible connection we once had to each other.

I am please to report that we did feel connected. Cindy, my closest friend of the group and room mate for all 4 years, said it best, "Isn't it amazing that after 38 years we can get together and it feels like it was just yesterday..."

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
          ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill... they still make this stuff??

We did have a very close relationship during those years. I have tried to explain it to Lanny without a lot of success. We were all fresh out of high school back then and "on our own" (a relative term-- most of us were going to school thanks to our parents, who financed our educations!) for the first time. It was the early 1970's... an age of freedom and to some extent experimentation. We burst on to campus with enthusiasm and complete confidence we'd make our mark on the world. Or did we? I remember being pretty scared. Not only was I on my own, but suddenly I found myself surrounded by people who were at least as smart as me and probably smarter. I had skated through high school academically without much challenge. And I had chosen a field where if I didn't learn it, I could literally kill somebody. Under that kind of stress, thrown together in the communal living arrangement known as a co-ed dorm, and being generally optimistic, happy people, we all bonded with one another with an intensity we'd never experienced before.

I am happy to report that without exception every one of us has lived a full, productive and relatively happy life. Four of us married guys we met at school. Of those, two of the marriages failed, including my own, which is at the national average, I guess. Four of us became registered nurses, but in completely different specialty areas. Of those four, two went on to obtain master's degrees. The fifth went on to law school at U of M and became a securities attorney in New York. And one, tragically, passed away about 10 years ago...

But that wasn't the end of the story! None of us ended up as we thought we would.

The securities attorney stopped practicing law when her children were small to attend to their needs and now that they are grown she has focused on a very active life as a volunteer.  She married a guy she met in law school, also an attorney, and has been happily married to him for over 30 years. They left New York City when they started a family, but she finds herself returning often now because her daughter is just starting as an actress and has been in several Broadway productions!

The rehab nurse went into nursing administration after getting a master's degree, and then went on to be active in her national professional organization and as a nursing hospital administrator. She is nationally recognized in the field of rehab nursing. And she left that all behind to return to her family's farm several years ago. Today she raises cattle and helps her brother operate a huge corn/soybean farm. And she is active in the small farming community she grew up in. As she puts it, the girl who left home thinking she would always be a nursing professional has returned home and loves it.

The home health nurse married her college sweetheart, moved with him to several far away locations and practiced nursing in a variety of roles, none of them traditional. She found herself divorced and facing the challenge of re-inventing herself (she and I had A LOT to talk about!) To fill the huge void in her life she started going on mission trips, and lo and behold she met a wonderful man on one of the trips. This big city girl married a very rural guy and moved to the farm. They are now retired and she loves it!

The ICU nurse married her college sweetheart and moved to where his job took them. She worked mostly per diem while raising her two kids, and after they were grown and gone she decided to try something different and has been working in the pharmaceutical business conducting clinical trials on potential new drugs. The switch took her away from the bedside but has proven to be rewarding, intellectually stimulating and usually enjoyable. She will be retired by the end of this year and finally able to enjoy stress-free time with her husband of over 35 years and the rest of her family.

And then there is me. The OB nurse forever, who swore she'd never leave the bedside but ended up as a nursing administrator, helped open a new unit and a whole new hospital. Who married her college sweetheart and had a couple kids and then found herself divorced and having to start over...

Obviously, we must acknowledge our school for providing us with an education that prepared us to be successful in our careers. But I think we must also acknowledge that perhaps those years also helped prepare us for some of the other stuff life has thrown at us. Our friendships gave us the courage to try new things back then, and when we supported each other through bad romances, difficult classwork or fights with other friends, we were helping each other prepare for the bad stuff in life. And we certainly learned how to celebrate life in college! And we brought those "skills" with us to our reunion!!!

So here's to you guys... Cindy, Donna, Jean and Kathy! RIP Marty... And here's to Jeigh and Al and all the guys on the second floor of Couzens Hall.  Here's to Judy Judd and Mary Reynolds and all the other nursing instructors we must have frustrated so badly!

Oh yes and one more thing...

GO BLUE!