The second time I found out what she was made of, I was about 15 years old. Some of us were in the Burger King parking lot on Dry Creek and Arapahoe hanging out as teens tend to do. Some girls yelled out “Hey! What middle school do you go to?”

Horribly offended as we were in HIGH SCHOOL not middle school thankyouverymuch, I yelled out “What prison are you from?”

At that point, they started running toward us. Fast. These weren’t bow wearing, Laura Ashley sporting girls. These were banger girls. They looked hard and mean. I had a venomous tongue and liked verbal sparring but FIGHT someone? With my hands? Um…No. I ran like a scared rabbit through the greenbelt towards my house.

Becca stayed there and pretty much bumped chests with this girl in a “you wanna go?” kind of way. Becca was scrappy. Here’s this little girl (5’2”ish, 95 lbs) who was willing to fight. I was in awe. Apparently, they ended up not fighting but it was the fact that she WOULD have.

The first time she defended my honor, we’d only known each other for a few months. We met Freshman year in high school at an all girls Catholic high school. For some dumb reason, this girl wanted to kick my ass (dumb reason = I called her friend a slut). Becca stepped up and told the girl to shove it. Aw, now that I’m remembering it and typing it all out it’s like that movie, My Bodyguard.

Here is Becca at age 15.

And yes, she really did have that much metal in her mouth. Claire and I had the normal braces with just the brackets on the front but Becca had some medieval braces that wrapped around each tooth. Looking at the picture now, I can’t help but smile. She looks like a baby.

Happy Birthday my darling Reba. I love you very much and miss you all the time.