Who was your first friend?

My best friend when I was little was Sara Myrtle Jaynes. When I first moved to Iuka at age five she lived a little over a block away on Old 25 (Wilmuth St.) next to the old wooden overhead bridge which crossed the RR tracks. She lived with her mother in a two story house and her mother rented two apartments in the house and they lived in one side downstairs. Her mother was a single Mom and her aunt and uncle lived in Corinth. They were childless and doted on Sara Myrtle. We were friends before we started to school. I was at her house or she was at mine most of the time. Her aunt would take us to movies, and to her house in Corinth. We were complete opposites. She had long black, curly hair, dark skin and dark eyes. I had long,blond curly, hair, fair skin and blue eyes. We attended church together and spent hours and days together, but as all kids did we would argue and then just a few minutes later, the argument would be over and we would be best friends again. Their house was right next to the railroad and my brother-in-law was an engineer on the train and we would sit on the side of the embankment beside their house and he would blow the train whistle at us when the train when by. There were not so many trains then and we could take a short cut down the tracks to walk to town to the movie, library, and dime store. We would take pennies and lay them on the track and the train would flatten them out.
The spring that we were in the sixth grade my family moved to the country and I started to school at Snowdown and the only time I would see her was at Sunday School. I missed her so much, but we both made other friends. When I started back to school in the ninth grade she was dating a boy from Corinth and they married later that year. It was not unusual for girls to marry at a young age. When she was 18 she gave birth to her second child and died before she was released from the hospital. My mother, another friend, and I attended her funeral in Corinth and I can close my eyes today fifty years later and see her. She was so beautiful and looked so peaceful. Just like she was asleep. This was my first experience with a death of someone who was my age.
She loved cats. She and her family were living where they were not supposed to have pets and she told me, "If you will just bring one by and drop it off I will feed it and they will never know it is my pet!" And about two weeks before she died I did and she was thrilled. I don't know what caused her death but I never forgot her and never will!
A few years after she died the house that she and her mother had lived in when she was little caught on fire and when the owners build it back they never replaced the second story. I don't know who owns it but it had always been a rental house until a few years ago and had remained empty. My daughter lives across the street from it now and I noticed this weekend that it is being torn down. Just seeing it there always brought back the memories of the good and bad times of our young lives. I am going to miss seeing the house and thinking of her each time I pass. I often wonder how our lives would have been if she had lived.
I do know that my life is richer for having had Sara as my friend and I will never forget her!