Strange morning. I got up before six to get dressed and eat breakfast before our journey. This time, it was only 25 minutes away. Steve and I went to the Business Health Center at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Edgewood, Kentucky, to get a yellow fever shot before our trip to Brazil.
I had dressed for a morning walk, so I took off as soon as we got home. After about five minutes, I remembered that I’d emailed a neighbor to see if she could walk with me this week, and I was stricken with the thought that she’d answered and I hadn’t seen it.
So I went back home to check email. She hadn’t responded, but two urgent emails called to me and I answered them. Then out again. I decided on a shorter route since I’d already walked ten minutes. Then a car pulled up, and I figured it was someone wanting directions.
But it was my friend Carolyn, who really needed to talk. We chatted for a while, and I reassured her that our mutual friend held nothing against her, but the Alzheimer’s had taken over. For some reason, as she drove away, I realized that my delay with emails had put me there at just the right time for her.
It’s funny about some casual friendships. I connect immediately with some people that I rarely see, such as Carolyn. We grew up 35 miles apart, so just coming from the same area drew us toward each other when we met 40 years ago. We are close in age and met in a group of young mothers, introduced by my neighbor, when we first moved to Ft Thomas. She eventually went back to teaching; we taught in the same school system for years. Since I’d taken only one year off, I retired before she did, and we were always comparing notes. We went through the illnesses and deaths of our mothers, struggling with the four-hour distance. She was an only child, and I empathized with her challenges. Now we have grandchildren we adore, but we also have other relatives in southern mid-Kentucky and middle Tennessee that are aging and have the accompanying issues.
Most of all, we are both women of faith, and freely ask for prayers for specific circumstances.
I feel very close to Carolyn, but we never get together intentionally. We walked together a few years ago, but neither of us minds walking alone–good prayer time–and it got too complicated. I know we’d enjoy lunch together, but I hesitate to suggest it because we both seem to have our hands full with relationships we already have. I guess I’ll just leave it alone and wait for the next time God brings us together.
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17, NIV.)
