I received two wonderful gifts this last week:
Gift #1: One marathon telephone call from Mr. College Freshman, responding to our simple text message: "Did you get the tickets?" (That took me a pathetic 16 minutes to type a text!) He was out running his 7-8 miles per day (News to us: Is he still in training?) and he wanted to chat... A few minutes with me, 15 minutes with his dad, and then the phone came back to me and we talked for 2 hours... I think I said 26 words... He talked about many things, most of which are "classified." At the very end of this call, Mr. Cool said "I want you to know that I couldn't really call and talk to you guys until I knew I was settled in here... not because I forgot about you... I love you guys..." Pinch me.
Gift #2: One email from a consistently-in-contact childhood friend... We met when I was 12 and living in upstate New York. We were part of group of pranksters who staged huge snowball fights, rode toboggans (standing up!) and played relentless games of Monopoly on snow days... We thought we were hilarious when we (while cleaning the church) answered the church's phone by saying "XYZ Church, God speaking." These guys taught me how to jump off the traditional "cliff" into Nyack Lake, how to flip baseball cards and how to "throw (news)papers."
My friend's family was like a "second family" to me. He and I have always chatted about twice a year. His parents visit my family whenever they are in town, and he stays with us for a few days, every couple of years. He wrote to say that he was reflecting on his life, back to "all of the great moments we all had shared" when he was visiting out here.
When I started to read this, I froze, wondering if he was ill. (He was not.) He recalled many of our wonderful schemes and adventures over these many years... and I smiled and reflected, too... Then, he just thanked me for my friendship, that we were always welcoming to him and our inviting him on all of these various outings over these last 30 years... I read these amazingly kind words and cried. Pinch me twice.
