Best Friends Forever

He's been the best buddy I've ever had. We're going on 44 years (Jan. 7th) together, and it has been a wonderful life.
He walked into Ken's Big Boy on Loch Raven Blvd. one frigid end of January night. I was sitting with my sister's future sister-in-law. We were just hangin' before we knew what that even meant. Nancy knew Jim, had known him for awhile, they were part of the Idlewild crowd. She introduced me to him and his best friend, Sal. I was impressed. He was cool; he was dapper. What else can you say about a guy around 20 (who looked about 16) who wore a chapeau? Conversation was sprinkled with some winks, and lots of smiles. He took my phone number, and whoa, he was gonna call me.
Sure!
I waited days, and no call. Hmmmm....I was guessing he was just too good to be true.
Lo, and behold! I ran into him at Ken's a few days later. Was all set to ignore the chapeau-ed, navy-blue, collar-up, wind-breakered bub. But he was all apologetic, and sweet with his story about his grandmother washing his shirt with the phone # in the pocket, and smearing all over the shirt. (Mom, as he lovingly called her, was not happy.)
Well, I believed him, and so began our great love story!
Within a year, we were married. He was on active duty in the Navy, so we did not even get a honeymoon. Poor guy had a cruise to Puerto Rico the week after our nuptials. Me, I went back to work at P.H. & H., and a lonely efficiency apartment off Sinclair Ln.
We wrote torrid love letters, and angsted over our separation. The 28 days we were apart felt like an endless suspension of time. I believe I cried myself to sleep just about every night. Jim, as a sailor, could hardly allow himself to weep for me, but his letters told of his anguish at being un-whole without me.
Somehow we survived this separation, only to repeat it again and again over a two year period.
Finally he left the Navy, and we had our first bundle of joy, Anita or Tina, as we nicknamed her.
Life was good: Jim started working for Stewart's as an assistant Men's Wear Buyer, we had our baby, and another on the way. Lisa was born on January 22nd, 1970; she had TGV. Transposition of the Greater Vessels did not come with a good prognosis. Eventual correction of the heart problem was inevitable, but, when, we did not know. Monthly visits to Johns Hopkins for tests and work-ups was the short term care plan. By the time Lisa was 17 months old, not able to crawl and at about just 17 lbs., we were sent to Buffalo Children's hospital for corrective surgery. We drove; Jim, Lisa, and I. We were hopeful, but the outcome proved to be traumatic. Lisa did not survive, but she did go HOME. And she's always been our little saint in charge of keeping the love alive in our family. To Be Continued.