Four pairs of women who have held on to their friendships for more than half a century share the inner workings of their unique relationships,
50-YEAR CONVERSATION As the decades pass these women still see eye-to-eye on many topics and use each other as sounding boards sharing the ups and downs of their midlife years. “We can go six months without talking but when we pick up the phone it’s like we start right where we left off before ” says Mimi. “It’s a nearly 50-year conversation. Libby’s husband says when she laughs in a certain way he knows she’s talking to me.”
M ention the word friendship to Miriam Zakon longtime writer and editor in the world of frum literature and she immediately brings up her 50-year friendship with well-known novelist story writer and serial author Libby Lazewnik. Mimi and Libby go back to first or second grade — they have a longstanding argument about when they first met.
But there’s no doubt that their camaraderie solidified in sixth grade when the threesome — which included Mimi’s twin sister Emmy — would go together to the library each week and check out stacks of books. “Books are what brought us together” Mimi says. “Libby was short and Emmy and I were tall and gangly so when we’d walk together she’d tell us to scrunch!”
Talk to Libby and she’ll share her own memories of this glorious period of her life. “I don’t recall ever formally getting to know Mimi and Emmy” she says. “They were sort of always there bright as tacks hysterically funny and generally a pleasure to be around. Starting in sixth grade we would walk home from school together talking nonstop. All of us being blessed with overactive imaginations we used to pretend that we were being spied upon by various trucks we passed. Our after-school trips to the library on Fridays were a weekly highlight.”
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