🎵 First Friend

Sibling love reaches beyond the walls where it starts.

Jody age 7 and Brian age 6, St. Maries, Idaho ~1984

We lived in the middle of Nowhere, Northern Idaho growing up. St. Maries, a small logging town of 2000 people, was a twenty minute drive from the “Brown House” - our split level home with a bright yellow door. Like many families, life behind that door wasn’t the stuff of storybooks. Our siblings are sometimes the only ones that understand from where we came, and that bond can’t be broken even after we’re grown.

First Friend
Written by: Jody Pritchard

V.1
Our driveway was gravel 
And St. Helens ash 
Dad grew corn in the front
Apple trees in the back 

Hide and seek on horseback
At the Bartenhagen's ranch 
JJ bucked you in the ditch
Seventeen is a lot of hands

Pre.
Eight years together
Is all we had
When Mom left with you
I wish someone had said
______
C.
Someday you'll live
In different houses
But what you share
Won't end

You're the only one 
Who knows how it is
And I'll miss my
First friend
_______
V.2
My kids say their cousin
Looks just like you
It's hard to believe
They're almost all out school

Their free range is a city bus
The J is a train
Fierce protectors of the other
Some things stay the same

Pre.
But when they argue
And neither will give
I think of you
And say to them
______
C.
Someday you'll live
In different houses
But what you share
Won't end

They're the only one
who knows how it is 
And you'll miss your
First friend
_______
B.
As many people as stars
But just one

Cut a hole in the brown vinyl
Chair where we hid
A wooden spoon raging down the hall

Sometimes mountains let loose
In those split level walls
And the ash fell down 

V.3 
We don’t talk about it
But I know it’s front of mind 
Hellbent to do it different
With our own we’ll get it right 

Pre.
One day the space between us
Will be more than a state 
Our secrets will bond us
Outside of this place
_______
C.
Someday we’ll live
In different houses
But what we share
Won't end

You're the only one
Who knows how it is
And I'll miss my
First friend