………………………….Robert Tirman…..”Bobby”……..and Mary Donnelly were my two best friends growing up, and forever more……..We all met at Elmont Memorial Junior and Senior High School when we were 13 years old….9th grade…..Mary and Bobby already knew each other from elementary school that they both attended. They lived a few blocks away from each other, but I lived on the other side of town…..so I went to a different elementary school….”Dutch Broadway Elementary School”…….Bobby and I became best friends immediately……Mary and I were in the same art classes. We had a mutual respect for each others talents, and through our art we became friends. I had a major crush on Mary instantly! After a while we started dating, and dated through out our junior and senior years…….The bottom pictures were taken of us for our senior prom…..Bobby went with a girl named Phyllis, and of course I took Mary……………You don’t call someone your “best friend” lightly……Bobby and I were “thick as thieves” as they say, and we did almost everything together….We studied together, we were on the same sports teams, and we double dated…..we went everywhere, and talked about EVERYTHING together!!….When we weren’t together we were on the phone…..It was land lines in those days! There was no such thing as “cell phones”!…..When Mary came into the picture my time with Bobby wasn’t as often, but he understood….That’s what best friends do…….There was NOTHING we couldn’t or didn’t talk about! I knew EVERYTHING about Bobby and he knew everything about me……and that’s the way it was though out our entire lives……Of course when we graduated we all took different paths……Mary went to NYU on an art scholarship……Bobby went to the University of Wisconsin, and I went to Parsons School of Design…..We were all lucky enough to get into the schools we all wanted to go to…….Distance and time kept us apart physically, but we never strayed or drifted too far from each other…….We definitely went our separate ways, but somehow always came back together……We lived in different states and at one point different countries, but we always made time to hook up somewhere….somehow……I even visited Bobby in Sweden when he was going to school there. It was my first trip to Europe. I had just graduated from Parsons and he still had another year in Sweden…..He was on a spring break, and we spent time in Sweden, which I fell in love with…..The MOST BEAUTIFUL people I had ever seen! We went on to Denmark and had a blast. When Bobby finally graduated, and came home we went to RIO for CARNIVAL!!!! One of the best times of my life! One of Bobby’s classmates was from Rio so we had a great time. He took us to EVERY party….I can’t remember us ever sleeping….maybe on the beach!…LOL….Bobby and I shared summer houses together for years….even when Jac and I shared a house with Bobby, and other friends……Mary, married twice. The first was a disaster, and they divorced after two years. She called me all the time in tears….I tried to console her, but she had to make the hard decisions on her own. She eventually moved to California, met a great guy, Ralph Chandler, married and had two beautiful daughters…..Mary and I talked on the phone all the time, and she would tell me everything. When ever she made a pilgrimage to NYC we would meet up for the day. We did all the things we always loved to do together….go to museums, shop and eat!……When ever we had a high school reunion, large photo above, we would always go together……”The Three Musketeers”…..We pretty much knew everything there was to know about each other….Mary and Bobby knew Jac well and they loved her, and Jac loved them, which made our friendship so much easier….Jac would teasingly say to me….”you should have married Mary”…Growing old isn’t easy, and with age comes physical problems. Mary had diabetes from childhood, which took its’ toll, and eventually was the underlying cause of her passing…..Bobby developed dementia, and with that many other physical problems. In the end he didn’t know who I was…..It was heart breaking……I spoke to Mary from her hospital bed only a few hours before she too passed……Again…..I was heartbroken…..Death is so final! They died within a year of each other…..my two best friends who I loved second to Jac…..The worst thing about getting old, for me, isn’t that I can’t do what I did at twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or even sixty…..The worst thing is the loved ones I have lost along the way……I miss they so deeply….I miss talking to them….I miss seeing them…….I miss just knowing they are alive and somewhere on this planet…….I just miss them…..It’s a horrible position to be in…….the last one standing…….They will always be a big part of me….always a part of my heart……..my BEST FRIENDS FOREVER!