Settled down across from each other our laughter carries across the worn kitchen table and fills the room.   It is during these moments after years of helping to raise each other’s kids and hopes and dreams that I realize who my porch rockers are.   Your are grown from late night calls and early morning walks, sitting together in pouring rain on school bleachers, prom picture parents, city hall supporters, emergency room relievers birthday revelers, preschool Christmas pageant paparazzi, sunset toasters; all accepting allies   We so treasure these lives wrapped around us in familiar layers. I know who I want next to me when the dust has settled from these decades of life’s roller coaster rides.   Friends from now will hold strong then. Cherishing the laugh lines that we’ve created together.   We will sit side by side my rocking chair friends and I.