It doesn't seem possible.

Yolanda King was one of my most treasured friends dating back to 1966 when we attended Spring Street elementary school — on the front lines of integration in Atlanta.

Sue Ross / Special

Childhood friends Yolanda King (left) and Maria Saporta at King's 50th birthday party.

Timeline: Over the years She shared the dream Sign guest book Photos: Memorial service | Her life | At the King Center Video: Ebenezer Baptist service

Our friendship began when I walked into the girl's restroom one morning and found Yolanda crying because of something a student had told her. I reached out to her with comfort, and we became best friends during a most incredible time in the history of Atlanta and our nation.

She would spend the night at my home, and I would spend the night at her house — giving me an extraordinary insight into her life as the eldest daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Yolanda — who then went by her nickname Yoki — and I shared a passion for her father's teachings. We would march together. And when I would spend a Saturday night at her house, we would go to Ebenezer Baptist Church on Sunday morning to listen to her father's sermons.

When her father was assassinated in 1968, it caused such a deep personal pain. Although our friendship continued during our years at Grady High School, we joined a larger community of friends, relationships that have lasted for decades.

Many of us came together for Yolanda's 50th birthday party at the eclectic Paris on Ponce in December 2005. The highlight that night was when her mother, then seriously ill with cancer, joined in celebration.

Yolanda and I saw each other several times during the next couple of months — unfortunately brought together again by death, the passing of her mother, Coretta Scott King, last year.

How can it be that Yolanda — my friend, my contemporary — is gone?

It doesn't seem possible.