So the other day Steven and the kids and I were at our friends' the Silva's house for dinner. After dinner (or before I can't remember because it seems these days that I have short term memory loss...) Alecia began snapping pictures of Jackson. This girl has amazing talent (and her own portrait studio might I add) and in the matter of minutes she had taken some darling pictures. Then she went into her office, did some editing, and this, my friends is the outcome. It is really wonderful having such amazingly talented friends!
Which brings me nicely to the other reason for this post. Lots of people say that blogging is kind of like journaling and someday when years have passed, you can look back at the things you've blogged about and remember the stories of your life.... Some blog entries are funny (like the things our kids say or do), some are sad (like when a family member or dear pet falls ill or passes away), and some are straight from the heart because they "just need to be written"...
To have a friend like Alecia is a blessing. Simply stated, the time spent together is easy and fun and makes us both laugh. It also seems to offer the safety for feeling comfortable enough to cry, and open up about the burdens on our hearts.
This has not always been the case, however. There have been times when "life happened" to the two of us, hearts have been broken, and the distance between us has been cold and far. In those times, I tried to rationalize with "well some people come into your life for a time and then life moves on..." However, there was not a day that went by that I didn't think about her or her family and wonder if things could have (or should have) gone differently. In fact, at the risk of sounding a bit "stalker-esque" I even drove by her house once with fresh made chocolate chip cookies, wondering if I should just "stop in and chat". But I didn't, I drove home and ate the whole batch myself....
Anyway, one fateful day (about 18 months into having not seen or spoken) I got a call on the nurse triage line where I work as a phone nurse. As soon as the person on the other end began to speak, my heart threatened to beat out of my chest....I recognized that voice....it was hers. It was Alecia, and she was calling about her son who had a fever. I am not someone who gets nervous as a rule, but I was nervous in that moment. I knew who she was but she didn't know it was me. I identified myself, gave her the option of talking to another nurse, and she graciously declined saying she trusted my medical judgement and wanted to hear what I had to say.
So we talked about fever and what to watch for, and then we just talked....
The conversation was not at all like I had hypothesized it would be. It was calm, and collected and extremely pleasant. I couldn't talk for very long seeing as I was at work, but we did talk for a bit and we got caught up on what had happened in our lives in the last year and a half.
To make a very long story short, Alecia and I got together a few more times to talk about things, and the growth that she and I had both made personally in our time apart, continues to astound me today. True, feelings had been hurt and hearts had been cracked, but that was not enough to keep us from figuring it out and putting the pieces back together. It truly felt as if something larger was at play, because the reconnection (although very emotional) was somehow seamless...
I love Alecia and her family with everything I have, and I appreciate more than she will ever know the part that she plays in my life. I am saddened when I think about all that we missed in the 18 months of our lives that we were not speaking, but I am looking so forward to the fact that now we have the rest of our lives to share...
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Thank God (really) for fevers and phone nurses. And truly amazing friendships.
