Polly Reichrath

I met Polly when I joined a support group at the Soul Esteem Center. Although new members came and went, there were four of us who formed a core and our friendship lasted over 20 years. We met each week on a Tuesday, so we became the Tuesday Girls, even when later we became a book club on Saturday nights. We bonded like the Golden Girls and became true sisters. Polly had a wicked, sarcastic sense of humor. She laughed at herself and her own foibles, and helped a person not take themselves so seriously. She had experienced her share of troubles too, so if you needed someone to listen, she was a compassionate voice on the other side of the phone. Her Christian Science background helped her guide you to a brighter viewpoint, but if you needed a pity party, she would support you until you were ready to rise. I only knew Polly when she was older, but what I observed was she never met a stranger. The four of us would go to art fairs or town festivals and we would lose Polly, usually finding her talking to a couple with a baby in a stroller or someone with a dog. She smelled all the soaps and candles, she would read all the cards in the card rack. It never failed when we went to a ballgame, she ended up chatting and cheering with the Cards fan on the next seat, someone she had just met. Polly was a Virgo who didn’t mind fighting for her point of view. If you were her friend, you probably fought with her once or twice. She was a militant recycler, a committed vegetarian who “would never eat anything with a face.” She was dedicated to fair treatment of animals and saving the environment. She had a special love of birds and watching them at her feeders made her happy. She was precise and would reset the clocks on my stove and VCR, straighten pictures hanging crooked, and rehang my toilet paper so that the roll would hang next to the wall. It was our joke. Her house was neat, her coffee was good and her hugs were warm. Her smile was dazzling. Polly is someone I ‘m glad I got to know, a sister I will never forget and a partner in crime I will think of often. She died on a Tuesday. When I realized she was a Tuesday girl to the very end, I swear I heard her soft voice say, “It TOOK you long enough.” I’m smiling through my tears, until we meet again.