Just Us Girls

Contributed by Laurel Nleson-Rowe

Many Midwest wedding guests have seen this reception spectacle. It’s also captured on various phone videos. Eight women, including one who is either mother of the bride or groom, jump out of their chairs when the DJ spins the first beats of “We Are Family.”

These ladies are no longer young; they certainly are not old. They high-energy dance, and laugh, and sing along with Sister Sledge “I got all my sistas with me,” like it’s 1993. That’s when some of us became something like sisters.

These are my friends, my seven sisters of other mothers.

GNO Bakery-Babes Plus

Left to right: Joy, Cathi, Kerry, Laurel, Beth, Julie, Maureen and Theresa.

Kerry and I first met as church-school fundraising volunteers. We connected shortly after her then-husband (now divorced) introduced their newborn to the congregation’s applause. Two of our kids attended school together, from first grade through high school. When our two families changed churches and schools, we met Julie, Joy, Maureen, and Theresa. Cathi and Beth, and their families moved into the neighborhood, parish, and school, about that same time, too. Some of our kids became fast friends, very close, even bffs in the same classes through elementary and high school. (I still have Christmas ornaments to attest to those bff bonds.)

So, while church and school provided early connections, life experiences and common interests created and continue to build unbreakable chains.

As our roughly the same age kids went through life stages together, so did we. We’ve balanced full-time work. We were/still are teachers, accountants, social workers, creative directors, IT and pricing managers, fund developers, marketers, writers. We’ve supported and actively cheered, even coached our kids’ sports. We’re voracious volunteers. We’ve struggled with aging parents.

Now, to a person, we are grandmas, nanas, grammies, gagas, and, well, I’m “Wiewie.” My first granddaughter coined that when she couldn’t easily say “Grandma Laurie.” Several of us are also part-or full-time grandchildren caregivers. Most of us did not have parents either nearby or able to care for our young children—either pre-school or after-school. We wonder and chide each other: How did we ever manage? But now, the antics and accomplishments of our many grandchildren are treasures. We are never short of stories about kids and grandkids when we get together.

And, we do get together. There’s the once-a-month dinner and cards—sheepshead to be specific. If you are not from Wisconsin you may not know the game. My Wisconsin-born friends are advanced players. Their patience sometimes wears thin with laggards like me--still learning and leaning on cheat-sheets. In the last year we’ve added to the activity roster with pickleball multi-times-per-week. You’ll find us outdoors in warm weather, indoors come fall and winter, and sometimes paddle in hand with hats,gloves, and down vests when snow flies. And every December you’ll find us all at the women’s Christmas boutique taking on our annual Bakery Babes responsibilities.

You’ll also find the sports enthusiasts among us. We’re in the stands at University of Wisconsin football and basketball games, at Marquette University basketball (women’s and men’s). We’re avid fans and debate the plays and players at Milwaukee Brewers baseball and tailgates, at Milwaukee Bucks basketball, and, of course, at Green Bay Packers games—the last a highly unusual and sometimes high-cost occurrence. One friend’s family does own tickets. We’ve gone as ticket prize winners or shelled out for seats from ticket brokers. Some of us are on the list, slowly moving up each year among the nearly 150,000 seeking Packers’ season tickets.

GNO takes flight to Dominican Republic sun and fun.

Front row, left to right: Cathi and Maureen

Back row: Laurel, Kerry, Theresa, Julie, Beth and Joy

We are a traveling band, the latest excursion a week earlier this year for us all to eat, drink, dance, laugh and let go in all-inclusive luxury in the Dominican Republic. We marked milestone birthdays for many—I’m not telling who hit how many years. Altogether or in part we’ve done Dallas, partied in Paris, road tripped Iowa, river cruised Europe, Vegased baby, and regularly harvest-fested in Door County, Wisconsin, to name a few. Next up? Nashville.

Perhaps the times we feel most like family are the happy times—yes, the birthdays plus weddings, showers, births--and when we come together in compassion to cope with life’s sadness, divorce, sickness, death, funerals, memorials. We’ve celebrated the lives of so many parents. We’ve cried for children in health crises or when their lives were cut short. We’ve offered sympathies when spouses and siblings succumbed to illness. I was surrounded in the strength and grace of these women when my son was the victim of multiple gun shots and, later, self-inflicted stabbing, two of our family’s traumas.

We’ve never been content to simply say our thoughts and prayers are with you. In tragedy as in triumph, we are with each other.

For decades now, we’ve called ourselves, and heard friends and family call us GNO, or The GNO, or Your GNO Group. Yes, we’re still girls. Yes, we still have our nights…and days, weeks, months, years. And yes, you’ll know us when you see us, out and about.

Laurel Nelson-Rowe is Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based communications professional and writer specializing in business and technology. She now enjoys adventurement with family, friends, and, of course, The GNO.