Every Woman Needs An Emily

June 2024

“I’m awful at interviews,” Emily scowls, tossing her phone on the beach towel. “I can’t do it.”

I have to agree with my friend—interviewing probably isn’t her strength. I can see her now, sitting at a conference table with a couple of school administrators, her face flushed as purple grapes, words spilling out when she gets heated about education and equality and how to get little kids to read. She might cuss. Probably twice.

“Mangoes! Jewelry!” friendly vendors trudge by while the June sun flames on the Puerto Penasco sand. We’d rather come in cooler April, but Emily won’t let us miss a school day for a girls’ trip.

My friend chews on her thumbnail, eyeing the ocean. I want to give her the confidence that’s already hers—like she’s given me. How do I sum up the last 19 years?

2005 Moms’ Group 

Snack bags and sippy cups were spread across the picnic table at Butler Park. My 3-year-old was playing in the sand with her baby brother; I took a second to breathe and listen to my new mom friends talk about their husbands, kids, and remodels.

But this one mom kept her distance, too cool for us in her flip-flops and skinny jeans, looking 13 years old in sporty blonde pigtails. She even yelled at her kids without batting an eye. We probably didn’t have much in common as I was an older mom, annoyingly nice to my kids, and I wore mauve terrycloth pantsuits.

But as the sun set, Emily and I were left by ourselves. The kids were still having fun, and we drifted together to watch them play. I didn’t know how to make conversation. I’d clearly lost my social skills. She didn’t seem to mind. She picked at a toenail.

“Your kids are great,” she half-smiled.

“Yours are too. How old are they?”

She rolled her eyes, “Two and three.”

“Wow, that’s close.”

“My mistake.”

“No! It’s good that way.”

“No, it’s hard,” she giggled, stood and stretched, sauntered over to her youngest, and scooped sand from his mouth. Then she sat back down on the cement steps and eyed my mauve terrycloth pantsuit. I tried to hide the coffee stain.

“We should go to Old Navy. There’s always a sale.”

With another mom, we might have talked about parenting and marriage—why Phoenix and that fleeting thing called happiness. But Emily? Not a talker. It was nice just to sit. We watched gnats in the fading sun and enjoyed the kids getting along and not eating sand. She talked about her husband’s late nights and, like mine, her kids’ early mornings.

When we finally said bye in the parking lot, she strapped her youngest into a car seat and called over her shoulder, “We’re coming to your house at the cracka dawn for pancakes, K?”

Was it too early to throw my arms around her and holler, “Yes, yes, yes! You’re the friend I’ve been waiting for!”? I played it cool, “Really?”

“Yeah, we’ll come over when we wake up. I know your house on the corner.”

2006 

I heard a soft knock on my front door. A yell. Then a kick.

“Streeters are here!” I called to my kiddos as I tossed toys out of the way and opened the front door. Just like every day. Two little towheads tumbled in, 4-year-old Colin grinning confidently, and littler Caden, looking for his diapered buddy Joseph. Bluey, his blanket, dragged on the floor. Bluey was brown. Emily entered last, grinning helplessly, fair skin freckled and pink, rolling her eyes and barking commands. The sun was just up.

As I closed the door behind her, I peeked at the yellow haze whispering across the Phoenix sky. Piestewa Peak loomed over Sue’s house across the street. We both longed to climb that mountain. Athletes in high school, we felt restless in our bodies during the long days at home. But we wanted to spend these early years with the kids. Emily hugged Joseph, took over flipping pancakes, and discussed the plan for the day. We were supposed to enroll the kids in preschool, but neither of us could pull the trigger.

“Let’s teach them ourselves,” Emily chirped, bright-eyed, and I believed her since she was, in fact, a kindergarten teacher before she was a mom. She sketched out a schedule for the units on the alphabet. We’d teach one new letter every day. Heaven forbid, our kids had educational gaps.

The next day, I went first, digging my toe into the dirt in Emily’s backyard. I made the letter D. “See guys? Dee, dee, dee.”

Caden giggled, probably embarrassed for all of us, then lured Joseph to the other side of the yard. His buddy waddled after him, missing a shoe like a tipsy weddinggoer. They peed together in a bush.

Colin rested for a moment, alone in the corner of the yard. Emily called him over and studied his face, wheedling an inhaler out of her shorts pocket. He took a puff, then ran off, sun glowing on his brown skin.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just medicine for a little asthma,” she turned her face away and coughed. Coughed again. Took a puff of the medicine herself, and finding it was empty, rolled her eyes, and twisted up from our blanket on the ground. “I’ll be right back.”

“You have asthma, too?” I called.

She walked steadily inside.

Over time, I gathered Emily’s mom had died from an asthma attack. When I pressed her, she said it was hard and changed the subject. I didn’t mind. Most days, Emily and I played frisbee when the kids were playing, and tried to laugh as much as possible. When I had my third baby, Emily got the room ready when I was in the hospital.

When I came home, emotional and a little overwhelmed with three under three, she handed me a box of Otter Pops and took the baby out of my hands. She said, “Our lives are good, Ker. And friendships matter when you’re raising kids.”

2008  

Our oldests were shy . . . our second borns, wild. Emily and I admitted the kids could use a little school. One day after preschool drop-off, Emily showed up at my door, face sweaty and smiling. Hands on her knees to catch her breath. There was no car. No kids. She had running shoes on.

I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorframe. The blood cells that made up my friend were circulating. Fresh. Bright.

“I want some of that,” I said.

We searched the closet for running shoes, but I hadn’t run in years. Sore feet. Sciatica. She didn’t want to hear it.

We drove to the canal so we could measure the distance. Climbed up on the bank. Cheered on a mother duck with her ducklings, pulling against a shimmering current. Emily checked her watch—kids were out in an hour.

The first steps were the best because it felt like being unleashed. Free. Then it got really hard—like a nightmare of being chased when your legs weigh a thousand pounds. After a grueling mile, we got in the car. Every part of me hurt, even my elbows.

Emily gave me a side glance before turning the ignition, “You’re actually really strong.”

I glowed inside, “Ha. Thanks, but I am not.”

“You’re a natural, Ker. You’re gonna be fast.”

How’d she know these things? She had to be making them up. I fiddled with the radio.

“We need to make a goal,” she said.

“Like a 5k?”

“10k.”

I gulped.

“Dan and David can watch the kids while we train.”

On I glowed. If Emily thought I was strong, I must be.

She began knocking on my bathroom window in the dark morning hours, so we could get our run in before our husbands left for work. We began adding more and more miles, eventually training for a marathon. After our first one, we hurt so much, we sprawled out on the grass along a fence at the finish line, unable to stomach the chocolate milk somebody gave us, but figured we were moms, so nothing was too hard.

We ran two, three more. Qualified for Boston. We ran religiously, and with very little whining, because Emily said whining didn’t help.

2010

Emily saw a triathlon on TV. “Swimming and biking mixed with running will be better for us,” she reasoned.

The next day, we joined the cheapest gym with a pool for us and a playroom for the kids. We bought used bikes off a website. Watched YouTube videos on how to transition from a wetsuit to a bike in under two minutes and where to buy laces we didn’t have to tie.

When we got the courage, our husbands schlepped the kids to our triathlons on the weekends. The races were nerve-wracking and fun and challenging and painful. Emily and I won medals in our different age groups. We bought cute racing outfits. Sunglasses. Helmets. Faster and faster bikes. Then Emily called one day: You have to come over here. 

When I arrived with the kids, she was chopping tomatoes. “Ironman, Ker. I think we’re ready.”

I blinked. What about the training with three little kids? “Are you serious?”

She wiped her palms on her t-shirt and talked about our window. Firm muscles in her hands wielded the giant knife. She looked like a fearless, tan 9-year-old up to bat.

We focused. Trained. Got super strong. And when it wasn’t easy, and we started to ache and felt like we were dying or when we got a bee sting or a flat tire or a cramp—the other one was there, so it wasn’t so bad.

Our saintly husbands watched the kids and didn’t add up the hours we were gone. Once, they loaded the five of them in our van and drove behind us as we rode out Lake Mary Road. When the kids got sick of being in the car, they spent the afternoon throwing rocks in the lake, waiting. When the moon rose, and our ride was finally done, we curled up with our families on the shore.

2012  

Heading across the park to Tempe Town Lake on the predawn morning of Ironman Arizona, Emily blurted, “I don’t think I can get in the water.”

“I know, right?” I chuckled . . . until I saw the whites of her eyes reflecting the moonlight. “We’ll be fine,” I punched her arm playfully and breathed. Tried to keep my nerves in check.

She blinked into the dark. Eerie shadows of other athletes migrated across the lawn, heading in the same direction as us.

“A lot of people,” Emily muttered.

We were told by veteran Ironmanners not to freak out. To expect to be sandwiched between big guys, to have our goggles kicked off. To be scared. We knew we just had to keep moving forward. Two miles in the water, and we’d be out.

At the edge, Emily looked green.

“C’mon, Em, we just have to get in,” I pressed my goggles to my face and leaped into the dark-as-tar water before my brain could have a say. My wetsuit bobbed me up and down, away from the land and toward the mass of swim caps. My eyes darted around for Emily.

She held her ground on the gravel bank, face like stone, “I can’t do it,” she called.

“Oh, yes you can! This was your idea!” I cried.

She smiled weakly, took a puff on a puffer, muttered, and jumped. Scared out of our minds, we dog-paddled into the crowd of competitors. Before long, the gun went off.

Less than twelve hours later, wrapped in a silver blanket, Emily jumped up and down at the finish as I came across. Her braids were crusty, and every pore of her face radiated brightness. Heaven in a day. Sun. Wind. Motion. Breath. People. Life.

June 2024

“Earth to Keri,” Emily’s waving an ice-cold Dos Equis under my nose. “Keep up, Ker!”

I take a sip, coming back to the Mexican seagulls overhead. I giggle, wondering how many times on our training runs she had to say that.

“I was thinking about Ironman,” I sigh.

“We were so amazing,” she says, gazing at the waves. Then the conversation moves to our families—our hopes and worries about each of the kids. I tell her my heart’s doing good, and I’m tolerating medication. She tells me she’s training for another race. We watch a family in the water. A little boy stumbles, hit by a surprise wave.

Emily blurts, “I haven’t been feeling like myself. Sometimes I cry for no reason.”

“Ugh. Tell me more,” I say, my voice husky.

We talk about hormones and empty nests. She studies her nails and says, “I’ve also been thinking about my mom. Which is just weird.”

We sit quietly, and I wait for Emily to tell me the story about how her mom typically had asthma attacks in the evenings. How one night, the ambulance came for her. How the neighbor in the street told little Emily she’d be fine. How her mom never came home. But Emily looks up from her beer. She doesn’t want to talk.

I take her hand for a minute, which I want to last an hour, a lifetime, whatever it takes until her head and heart heal. There are no words.

How do I talk about fear with someone who lost their mom when they were nine? How do I talk about love—not romantic love, but that earthy, concrete love like handing over the baby or running a hundred miles or swimming the Pacific—which doesn’t seem big enough to hold all my gratitude for this brave friend who chose me to raise her children with. Love that wants to take her in my arms and become her mom for the rest of the afternoon, and hold her tight and tell her everything is going to be okay.

How do I explain that my heart failure tells me that grief is worth healing? Worth feeling? That it’s the way to freedom. And if anyone deserves to be free, it’s my Emily.

She drops my hand, and we talk about changing jobs and intimidating interviews and how ridiculous is is that 90% of administrators are still men. We talk about how she wants to believe change is possible. She’s going to kill the interview, I know that.

“Change is possible,” I take a sip of my beer, “look what we did,” I say.

“Yeah, that was awesome.”

“It was because of you.”

“No. You would’ve done it without me.”

“There’s no way. I needed you,” I say.

“Whatever,” Emily’s cheeks turn orange, and she flips over.

“. . . and that new job needs you, too, Em,” I smile, getting the last word.

I know she’ll jump in—like the dark morning of that terrifying swim. Come to think of it, Emily has done nothing but jump in since she was 9 years old, eyes wide open, into the truth that life can take people away as quickly as they’re given. Nevertheless, like a little girl, she’ll jump . . . into the next moment of her big, beautiful life.