“Do what you can, when you can, with as much love and honesty as you can, and when you can’t, rest.” ~ Nanea Hoffman
old friend
Ya’ll haven’t heard me talk much about my high school BFF, Kim Cox. We bonded in high school and ran around West Liberty and Morgan County like we owned the place after we got our driver’s licenses. Our birthdays are only four days apart; I’m the older of us. We were 16 when her parents had a second child, her brother, Jeremy, and he was loads of fun. For the most part, we had good, clean fun, and a lot of it with our merry band of friends Jill L., Rhonda P., Rhonda T., Cindy S., Geri M., Greg G., Eugene C., Larry Scott E., Bazie D., Donna M., Jimmy M., Tim F., Jill C., and the list goes on and on. There was a herd of us, and we spent a lot of time at Hero and Shero’s house watching VHS movies, playing Rook, and the new thing all the rage, MTV. Kim married a month after we graduated. I went to college for a while before launching into a musical career. She had a son and several divorces. Our lives took very different paths, and they rarely crossed over the next 40+ years, but we always managed to keep up with one another through our mothers, mutual friends, Facebook, or all of the above. She is pictured here the day after the March 2012 tornado as she and her boyfriend at the time, accompanied me from her house on Glenn Avenue to Mamaw’s house on Prestonsburg Street, looking for Aunt Janet, mom, dad, and any other family I could find. Kim had been in Morehead at the time of the twister, but her brother and mother survived the storm from an interior closet. Thankfully, all our people survived, but it was a traumatic event for both of us just the same. The last chance I had to see her was at our 40th high school reunion in October 2023, but I had to skip it because of a migraine. We had not seen each other in person since 2012. Two nights ago, she suffered a house fire in her West Liberty apartment and is now fighting for her life in the Ohio State Burn Unit. If you’ve a minute to offer up a prayer, light a candle, say a kind word on her behalf to God and the universe, I would be grateful. No amount of time apart could ever change how important her friendship was to me during those formative years, or how thankful I am to have had such a friend.
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