Joy of Friends

Long time friends, Jon and Tricia, visited our family this past weekend. They brought their two girls, Kate and Lauren, whom we adore and consider a part of our family. They also brought lots of fruit.

(‘Cause everyone knows a good house guest in the South shows up at your door with a watermelon under their arm and a bushel of peaches. That’s how we roll below the Dixie line.)

Our children have grown up around one another and often refer to each other as cousins. Because our families are so close, it does cause some confusion for Mary Mac: "Mommy, I'm not sure how I'm related to Mr. Jon. Is he my wife?"

Our friendship longevity goes back to our college days where Tricia and I were sorority sisters and eventual roommates. Nineteen years later, through graduate schools, weddings, shared vacations and the arrival of children, our history is far reaching and one that has only deepened with the passing of time. We have seen each other at some of our best, and at some of our worst, and continue to be close as though we’ve seen neither.

We didn’t have a planned schedule for their visit. With these types of friends it is unnecessary. Drinking coffee on the porch, before even brushing our teeth or working out the sleep creases in our faces, recollecting and laughing at the memories of the past and those we hope to make. It’s a friendship that even halitosis can’t tear apart.

Catherine (another long time friend and sorority sister) and her husband, Braden, joined us for a cookout on Saturday night and the six of us laughed until our stomachs remembered they still had muscles. Being around one another almost tricked us into wishing we were twenty years old again, but the seven children under the ages of nine, swimming and splashing in the pool, reminded us that we were exactly where we were always meant to be.

It was a quick-witted crowd that I was sorry to see leave. And the perfect end to a summer full of God given joy.