Best Friends are Forever
If you run 10 miles every day, seven days a week along the hilly streets of Naha in Okinawa, and you hold a 20-year Jazzercise franchise leading classes for enlisted service members and their spouses on U.S. bases in Japan and Hawaii—you, too, will have a body like hers.
With her sculpted physique, rich morena complexion, and signature straight bangs resting over jet-black hair, it was no wonder she was frequently featured in Japanese and Hawaiian travel and lifestyle magazines. Beyond English and Tagalog—the latter delivered with a distinct Bacoor accent—she speaks fluent Japanese.
Her beloved mother, a dedicated educator, must have been a devotee of Shakespeare to bestow upon her the middle name Portia—the name by which she is known today.
“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
(Of course, you aren't truly a Prepian if you cannot recite this portion of Portia’s monologue from The Merchant of Venice entirely from memory!)
To us, her high school friends, she was—and will always be—Digs. We knew her back then as seemingly fragile, soft-spoken, and remarkably guileless in class. Yet during exams, she was among those who deftly tattooed algebraic formulas onto her palms, forearms, or thighs. Not one to overly apply herself to schoolwork, she coasted along comfortably as a student and barely made it across the graduation stage.
Who could have guessed that she would transform into a long-distance runner and fitness entrepreneur, using her sharp instincts and striking looks to forge a path to success? And succeed she did—living in an elegant home in a gated community and quietly hobnobbing with Nevada’s conservative elite.
Because we shared the same commute home after school, Digna and I became best friends, even though we were polar opposites. I was bookish; she was a party girl. I holed up at home; she experimented. I had one boyfriend; she had scores of smitten admirers. Given our divergent paths, it was hardly a surprise that we lost track of each other once we entered college.
Yet, I held her close in my heart for years afterward. When the time came to celebrate my 30th wedding anniversary with a renewal of vows—to that very same high school boyfriend—I sought her out. After tracking her down in Las Vegas in 2007, I asked her to stand as my Matron of Honor, and she gladly obliged.
Today, our friendship thrives through calls, messages, visits to each other’s homes, and high school reunions. We simply picked up right where we left off—proving that neither time nor distance can ever truly keep best friends apart.
