WHEN FRIENDSHIP LASTS FOREVER — Sharon Mark Cohen

Somehow, a scene from nearly 40 years ago whiffed through my mind. I can picture my friend Maureen in a navy blue maternity dress taking a break from work and sitting at my desk on the other side of the office. To think, their beautiful granddaughter Rosa Maureen Hennessy arrived on February 26, 2025. Now, Maureen and her husband Ed have joined our ranks as grandparents!

It’s mindboggling how the years move as ocean waves, relentlessly offering currents of ups and downs. We’ve been through a lot in our 50 years of unwavering friendship with Maureen. I married first, Maureen gave birth first, my eldest married first, and I became a grandmother first; that’s how our roller-coaster of growing our families developed.

Maureen and I first met at the Unemployment Office in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the summer of 1975. When I began working there fresh out of college, I remember being greeted by Maureen with her cheerful disposition. Graduating the year before me, she had been employed there for a while before I started, and, somehow, she made the stress of the new job more palatable for me.

About a year and a half later, Maureen and I moved to other state jobs in different offices. While we lost touch after that departure, we were happily reacquainted when we each took our next position in January 1979, working at the Division of Disability Determinations (DDD) in Newark, New Jersey. See the blog post, THE THINGS THAT STICK IN PEOPLE'S MINDS, dated February 6, 2024, at sharonmarkcohen.com. Aside from my entry about Maureen in my memory book and her comments on the entry, she also sent me a remarkable special letter for my 70th birthday, rehashing events from our years of friendship.

Throughout our weeks of orientation for employment at DDD, our friendship blossomed as we traveled by train to the ill-fated World Trade Center. There, we were immersed in medical knowledge during the training period. Eventually, we both left state employment, but our friendship crystallized as we each parented three children born in close range.

Over the years, we celebrated, played softball, borrowed each other’s clothes, pampered our children, and mourned our losses. We shared many laughs and milestones.

Maureen is a boy mom, and I had a sandwich; a girl born between two boys. I’ll never forget Maureen’s beautiful words when I sheepishly told her, “It’s a girl.” Although it was soon after she delivered her third son, she lovingly said, “I’m so happy for you, you never had a sister.”

We each hosted numerous parties where our two families became as one. Each from a family of four, we got to know each other’s parents, in-laws, brothers, sisters, and their families, plus members of each other’s extended families. We were there for one another when we grieved numerous painful losses as though they were our own.

Now, the stage is set, and we can sit back and watch as our offspring raise their families. All the while, we’re sure to think about the half-century of memories we made with our families and the thrill of discussing them with our grandchildren.

The two photos I chose for this blog post show Maureen and Ed meeting our first-born granddaughter, Solly Ilah, in 2019, and Maureen meeting their first-born granddaughter, Rosa Maureen, in 2025.