Heartstrings

Published August 9, 2012

Stockton Sentinel

Stockton, Kansas

If you have moved from place to place a couple of times, you will understand why I frequently refer to the "chapters" in our lives. When you move into a new location, it's like your life starts all over again. There's a new house, new job, new church family, new friends. you start all over again with doctors, dentists, banks, even newspapers. When you move to a new place, everyone and everything is new, and while that sounds exciting, it also comes with a cost; moving means leaving behind everyone and everything that was familiar and loved.

The month of July was filled with an unusual amount of special events and surprises, all having to do with seeing people who have been a part of my life in a very meaningful way during the chapters in my life. It started with a wedding in the family of some good friends from Mankato, which included the opportunity to not only reconnect with those friends but others who were in attendance as well.

Then one evening in early July, just as we had finished dinner, my husband saw someone walking around in our yard and soon realized it was my former boss -- the lawyer I had worked for in McPherson. He and his family were on their vacation, heading up to Yellowstone, and made a special effort to travel by way of Stockton, just so they could stop in and say hi. I was SO glad we happened to be home that night!

Mid-July, we went to Kansas City for a Royals game and contacted friends who live in Ottawa to make arrangements to stop in and visit them. He was my high school music teacher, and we have been friends with their family ever since. We've lost track of how long it's been since we last saw them, but probably 15-20 years -- way too long, anyway. It was certainly a fun evening of catching up. We followed them into Olathe and ate dinner together, then followed them to their youngest daughter's house to see her and meet her family. I used to babysit her when she was a toddler; now she has four kids of her own and this summer experienced the wedding of her oldest daughter.

Our closest friends from Mankato drove over one Sunday morning in July in time to attend church with us. It had been over a year since we had last seen them, and they had not yet visited us here in Stockton. We enjoyed spending the day with them and taking them on a driving tour around town, showing them the school and my places of work.

And finally, the last weekend of July, we had a wonderful family event with the marriage of one of my nieces. Not all of my brothers or their families could be there, but it was good to get together with the ones who could make it. And the following evening, we got together with two couples who have been lifelong friends. They know us better than anyone and, surprisingly, still love us. That's what truly defines a friendship.

As I look back at the month of July, my birth month, I am grateful for the gift of friendship -- new friends, old friends, lifelong friends. Friendship is a gift with strings attached -- heartstrings. Indeed, the best gifts are tied with heartstrings.