One is silver and the other gold ...

Through a strange planetary alignment (or maybe just coincidence), two separate old friends of mine came to town and I got to see one last night, and one today.

Trix is the one I saw last night. She was a gift from my sister, by which I mean, she was my sister's best friend first, then she and I became friends. She has had an amazing life, weaving in and out of the lives of many interesting people -- interviewing Warren Buffett, going to a meeting with Andre Agassi and having Brooke Shields answer the door.

She's had great tragedy in her life. And great joy. And along with being gifted with an amazing intellect, creativity, and tenacity, she was given an incredible singing voice and in her 20's, was a professional singer.

I'm madly jealous, can you tell?

From several states away, during Hurricane Ike, she kept in constant contact with me, via cell phone and text messaging, letting me know what was going on in my own city, when I had no electricity.

And get this ... it's been 23 years since we last saw each other. 23 YEARS! But through email and phone calls, our casual friendship deepened over the years. She's family. Though the circumstances of our lives are different -- she's a single, child-free, professional, I'm a married, mom/seminary student -- we are very alike in terms of our spirituality, our politics, our beliefs about how you should be in the world.

23 years. I picked her up at her hotel last night and drove us to a Mexican restaurant, kind of a dive. The best places (and the best people) often are, right?

Our tongues hinged in the middle, we jumped from topic to topic and back again, catching up, connecting. We held the conversations of 8 people. We are talented that way.

We hugged. And said I love you.

Today, she found out that one of those women murdered in Pittsburgh was the best friend of one of her friends. "Please make an effort to tell those you love that you love them, and do it today!!" she wrote on Facebook.

This morning, my best friend from high school, maid-of-honor from my wedding came in town. She came out to my house with her 3 big kids. How could my crazy friend be a mom of 3? It boggles the mind.

Though it's been several years since we saw each other, ours was not the frenetic conversating from the night before. It was being in the presence of someone who knows who you used to be as well as the person you are now.

In some ways, she and I are very alike. We are mothers of what are now considered "large" families -- 3 and 4 kids. We're fairly strict. Our religions are important to us.

And, over the years, we have become very different. She is LDS, very conservative politically.

So we don't talk religion or politics. We've known each other since we were 14 and 15. We know each other. And we know that any minor differences such as religious or political don't take away from that.

We talked about our families, since I know hers and she, mine -- our siblings, our parents. We talked about our art -- hers, visual, mine, written. We admitted we don't give enough time to it.

And then it was time for them to go.

We hugged. We said I love you.

Old friends.