I can remember playing with Risa, my childhood friend, and the hours we spent playing on end like it was yesterday, but it's actually been almost forty years since those days.  Risa was the daughter of my father's friend and drinking buddy, so when my dad and Mr. Young, or Chick as he was affectionately named, got together, it was also going to be a party for me and Risa. I can't even remember now if we were the same age, all I knew was she was the best! There was nothing we did that we couldn't turn into an adventure in her back yard that at the time I thought was a mansion. I now know it was just your average Chicago south side home. For us, it was our oasis. To us, our friendship would last a lifetime. Risa, and her family, were unique. Her mom was white and Mr. Young was a fair skinned black man and so their creation of Risa was nothing short of a masterpiece to me. She was the first person I ever knew to be "mixed" and my first experience of knowing that although we were both light skinned and pretty, Risa had "good hair," and well mine, not so much. We didn't care though. Color, age, house size, or income, Risa and I were sure to be friends for life. I miss her. I don't know how or why we lost touch, but I'm sure my becoming a pregnant teenager had something to do with it. Or my parents divorce several years earlier. Or hers. Or all three. I honestly don't even know. All I know is that I have never had a friend like Risa since. I can't imagine what it must have been like for them living on the south side of Chicago at a time when interracial marriage really wasn't the norm, in addition to Risa's older brother Frank being gay. They were truly an enigma for their time, but all I thought was that they were a family of love and laughter because that's all I ever saw or experienced. #nature #photography