Home and Back Home

Going to and returning from the Black Hills is a push-pull experience. I have resisted going twice in as many months and yet am ever drawn there to seeing two friends of 55 years. Being with them was like it has always been, an easy togetherness that warms at first sight and grows anew with the graceful gift of familiarity.

We talk of our girlhood, our motherhood; and now of this bewildering aging that we find both challenging and comforting in ways we sometimes resist and sometimes rest in. We share names of old friends and acquaintances, places, times, experiences; we share meals that begin with a table grace in Norwegian, we share our enjoyment of our hometown newspaper even reading from it to one another; and we share our times together that used to begin and end with warm hugs, now including a kiss on cheeks starting to wrinkle.

Each of us face challenges that at times seem insurmountable. The challenges do not halt our ability to laugh over our own physical limitations while still caring for adult children who suffer debilitating conditions that limit their ability to make lives apart from us; or from the tasks of raising grandchildren. We complain about our churches that let us do too much service and we talk about how thankful we are for those who pray for us for years.

It is a true gift to be able to share our burdens with one another in heartbreaking reality, draw a breath and end the solemn solioquay with a laugh that doubles us over because of the absurdity of it. Being together is healing and helpful and I can't put the going back off so long next time. Friends are a gift. I would say thank you to them here, but they don't read this so I will write bread and butter notes to say it properly and send them off with a pretty commemorative stamp.