The Girl Next Door

~ MaryG

My son grew up with the girl next door. He was three when we moved here and she was the only other little kid in the neighborhood. She’s two and half years older than him, but when they were small, that didn’t matter.

They played in leaves, they played in snow, they played in sand, they bounced on her trampoline. They played video games or did legos together when it was too cold to go outside.

“Can I call Maddie?” was his #1 question in life for many years.

Eventually they grew apart, but she was his first best friend.

The Girl Next Door.

John and Maddie in 2005. She turned 28 yesterday and I reached out to her Mom with this photo. Her Dad still lives next door, but we don’t see him much.
The friendship lasted through several years of grade school.

15 thoughts on “The Girl Next Door”

    1. I remember when she hit middle school and didn’t invite him to her birthday party for the first time ever. She wanted to hang with her girlfriends—totally understandable. She grew up first.

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    1. Thanks! I finally figured out how to have One Drive (where I store all my photos) search for a specific person, so I got flooded with Maddie memories I hadn’t seen in years.

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  5. What a sweet story of childhood friendship. Sounds as though they had so much fun. Are you familiar with the refrain from the Jack White song “I can tell that we are going to be friends.” Or something like that. Unusually sweet for a Whit Stripes song.

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