Our lifelong friendship began in 1958. We were eight then and now we’re 58. October 2008 is the 50th anniversary of our souls crossing paths on this extraordinary earth.
Barbara (Shaw) O’Hagan and I first met at a Catholic School near Johannesburg, South Africa. She was boarding there and I was a day student.
She’d slipped away from wherever she was supposed to be. Her aura of excitement and fun was irresistible. We chatted while waiting for my father to fetch me.
The friendship that followed made the nun’s rigid rules and teachings of hell, fire and brimstone tolerable. I vividly remember our illegal entries into the nun’s quarters and getting caught playing music in the chapel.
I was thrilled when we attended the same High School boarding facility. The neighborhood became our illicit playground. We walked the streets at night, visited friends, slipped off to movies and stores and hid in our closets to avoid church. When we did get caught Barbara’s effervescence charmed the staff and our punishment was minimal. Our math teacher called Barbara and I and my roommate (also named Barbara), “Snap, Crackle and Pop.”
Our favorite book was “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran. When I misplaced my copy a friend returned it and said, “I think this is yours. You and Barbara are the only ones who read this stuff.”
Our bond of laughter was also born out of sorrow. Our family lives were eerily similar. Dysfunctional families, controlling mothers, chemical addictions and parents who favored our two siblings who lived at home. We both held the distinctive title of the “black sheep” of the family.
Our coed boarding school allowed us to date Roy and Dave, two brothers, who adored us in our teens. Roy and Dave’s parents treated us like the daughters they never had. They took us to movies and had us sleep over at their home.
Our rebelliousness and high spirits made us popular with our fellow students who elected us to chair and head varies clubs and activities. We were surprised when we were among the top six out of 150 High School graduation students to win a prize in our favorite subjects. Barbara in Biology and I in Art. We felt hurt that neither of our families attended.
After attending a University in Johannesburg for three years I joined Barbara in Cape Town where I worked as a nanny for a couple of months.
When I moved to the U.S. in 1971 our friendship continued via letters, phone calls and occasional visits in London, South Africa and America. We married other men, controlling ones not unlike our mothers around the same time. Luckily I divorced mine after seven unhappy years. Barbara’s separation and pending divorce will hopefully soon end the trauma of her sad marriage. She does however have three beautiful daughters in their early 20s.
Barbara recently visited Bud, my husband, and I at our home in America for a week. Fifty years worth of shared memories and connection kept us laughing and talking. Although we live half-way round the world from each other we somehow ended up reading the same books and sharing similar spiritual and political paths. This quote from her web site www.authorsden.com/barbaraohagan sums up her beautiful vision and spirit. “My passion has always been in education, not only formal education, but life itself -- nature and people. The more we know the less we fear!
I have always strived for a better world, embracing unconditional love -- to love for the sheer sake of love itself -- to always have fun and look for the positives and joy in everything and everyone!”
We chose similar professions. I counseled children at a Mental Health Center for 20 years. She started and ran two Montessori Schools one near Johannesburg and one in Beijing, China.
We also share a love of adventure and have lived and traveled in other countries. Barbara says, “My yearning to fly away every chance I get probably comes from spending my early years in boarding schools. And this is exactly what I’ve done. Flying around the world and living in interesting lands like Namibia, Botswana, Holland and more recently China. The many amazing countries I’ve visited include North, South and Central America, Australia, Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, Europe, United Kingdom, Ireland, Vietnam and many islands in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
Barbara was with Bud and I at my father’s bedside when he died in South Africa. He took his last breath when she told him, “Your family is here -- it’s okay to go.”
A friend once said Barbara is like Champagne. Her bubbly effervescent personality lifts people’s spirits. It’s true . My husband loves her too and calls her his other girlfriend. We both hope that she’ll one day come and live in the States. Perhaps be our neighbor.
Although Barbara has been gone a couple of days I’m still giggling. Even in places and with people where I’m normally impatient.
I feel blessed to have a friend who’s light has not only ignited enthusiasm and laughter in me but does so with everyone she meets. I love and miss you and my darling friend.
Enthusiasm is the source of aliveness, joy and power. The word enthusiasm comes from ancient Greek -- en and theos meaning God and enthousiazein which means “possessed by God.” When we’re enthusiastic we know we’re not alone.
Enthusiasm is a wave of creative energy. All that is needed is to “ride the wave.” Enthusiasm is a vision to work towards. It brings empowerment and never opposes. It does not create winners and losers and is based on inclusion.
Enthusiasm is at one with the present and knows where it is going. It “wants” nothing because it lacks nothing.
Enthusiasm does not manipulate because it is the power of creation. It walks around obstacles by yielding and turns the opposing energy into a friend. Eckhart Tolle
A friend is one to whom you may pour out the contents of your heart, chaff and grain together knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. Arabian Proverb
