Kindred Spirit

“I never had any friends.”
Gennie James as Mary Lennox
in Hallmark Hall of Fame’s Presentation of A Secret Garden

This is one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies. It’s the way Ms. James says the line that makes it perfect. A slight head tilt downward, a trace of wistfulness, and a hard edge of truth and stubbornness. She’s only a little girl, but she says it like she believes it, wishes it wasn’t true, but knows why it is. It’s an amazing performance.

It is the kind of thing I remember thinking often as a child. So, when I watched this movie on TV with my mom in 1987, I felt a connection with the young Mary Lennox. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t locked away and prevented from having friends. The fact of the matter is that I did have childhood friends - from the neighborhood, church, school, and my same-age cousins. It was just that I never had a true close friend. Or as Anne Shirley was fond of saying, “a kindred spirit.”

My friends were typical children, fickle in their friendships and neighborhood alliances. But for an only child entrenched in books and her own brilliant world of make believe (at least, it was brilliant to me), these friends were my social network, my foray into the outside world. I didn’t want the flash-in-the pan friendships they were all so fond of.

Where was my Diana Barry?

I found her in seventh grade. My family was visiting Windsor Baptist Church. I was led up a winding staircase to a new youth group. I was terrified - as only a 300 pound seventh grade girl can be - of meeting new people. I stepped into the room, looked over the sea of faces, and found refuge in those sweet eyes crinkled up in a smile.

Her name was Tania. We were instantly fast friends. Our connection was fueled by a mutual desire for a good friend, since we had both been rejected by a good number of other people. My obvious disability was my weight, while Tania’s was deafness. I like to joke now about how our friendship mostly consisted of me saying something and Tania saying, “What?”

I don’t know how I would have made it through junior high and high school without my Tania. Her sweet spirit and non-judgmental ways were both a comfort and a guide to me. One time, a girl who we had both been friends with at different times (she dumped Tania because she wasn’t “cool” enough for her, and she dumped me when she got interested in junior high boys) saw that we (Tania and I) were getting to be really good friends and tried to worm her way back in. I told Tania this was a chance for us to show her how it felt to not be included. But, no, Tania insisted I invite her to join us for a sleepover we had planned at my house.

At the sleepover, the girl waited until Tania went to sleep, and then told me that she though Tania was faking her deafness. She also said other things about how I should dump Tania and become friends with her. I told her that no way was that going to happen and that she was only at my house because Tania had insisted. She was pretty surprised. When I told Tania later, she just shrugged, and said, “Well, it was still the right thing to do.” I would have taken that girl down a peg or two, but not Tania – she always did the right thing. It should have driven me crazy, but it just made me grateful to be her friend.

Near the end of high school, I lost over 85 pounds, thanks to Weight Watchers. Everyone noticed. I still wasn’t even remotely thin, but people did notice. Everyone, except Tania. After two month of her not noticing, I finally asked her if she had noticed I was 85 pounds lighter. She look me straight in the face and said, “Yes, but you’re still you, and you’re my friend no matter what you weigh.” It was probably one of the nicest and most humbling things anyone had ever said to me.

After high school, we both moved away from home, went to different colleges, and our lives changed significantly. In college, we both made other close friends and found joy in multiple friendships which we had never had. The friendship “drought” through which we had sustained each other was finally over!

Over the years, we’ve partly lost touch, just thanks to life, but still manage to see each other or make contact every so often. She is still the same sweet, godly person, and I’m so glad she was in my life – as my very first “kindred spirit.”