View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

Lifelong friends. Who are they? If you grew up and old in the same place, you might have friends still from your childhood. Of course, with me, that never happened. In fact, I can never chance meeting an old friend on the street of, for instance, Minneapolis. I grew up, as you all know, in two suburbs of Oslo. In most cases, a lifelong friend is a relative. A sister or brother or maybe a cousin. And to my joy, my grandchildren, all eight born in five years, seem to be friends.

Now, they range in age from 15 to 21 and on the rare occasions they all get together, and it’s not a traumatic event like a funeral of one of their fathers, they do things together as a group. Mostly that is boating or board games, and last summer they made a video together, a faux news story, which was amazing.

I know they like each other and accept each other for who they each are. And in the group of eight, there are also close friendships. Maybe the most enduring is the friendship between Anders and Nils. Nils was 9 months old when his cousin, Anders was born. Nils is the eldest of our son, Erland, and Anders is the eldest of our daughter, Ingvild.

And even though Anders grew up in Minnesota and Nils in Virginia, they would meet several times a year, because families try to connect despite inconvenience. As toddlers, Nils and Anders bonded with their sense of humor and mischief making. Once, they were both staying on the 12th floor in a hotel in Florida. They had just learned the ABC song, which they sang several times at the top of their lungs in the elevator all the way to the top to the amusement of the other guests.

During our traditional water balloon fight on the fourth of July at our cabin, they would throw the hardest with the biggest balloons and later push each other off the end of the dock, which was not always funny when they didn’t know how to swim. There were pillow fights and once they threw darts into the wall of Anders’ room causing holes.

Anders’ dad, Patrick, himself a mischief maker, taught them how to hunt with bow and arrow. And they went all out. Luckily nobody was hurt. We always thought that the two of them together would be trouble forever and we wondered what would happen when they both became teenagers. We didn’t really understand that they had more in common than mischief making, they were both kind and sensitive. They were intelligent and thoughtful. And, as teenagers, they both lost their dads.

When Patrick died four years ago, Erland and his family travelled from Belgium during COVID and were there the next day. When Erland died, Ingvild’s family was there. I don’t think the boys talked about what had happened. But they were there for each other. Always. Doing teenage boy things. Playing basketball and video games. And chess. Always chess. They now fix cars together. Laugh together. Give each other goofy gifts for Christmas wrapped with the help of a lot of duct tape.

They are both in college in different states now but they still get together. This summer they built us a gazebo. And then, they went fishing. I sat in the cabin waiting for them to come back. It was dark, but our boat has lights. It was a magical night. And I thought of all that those two young men had gone through and how they still are kind and good with a little hint of mischief-making. Always.