Kindred Spirits

Written on Sunday August 15th
It is rare and wonderful when you find a friend that shares your mental track. I have several of those kind of friends; but most are far away. So when the chance for bonding with such a friend comes up, it seems wise to go for it. Since the death of my friend Deb Anderson, my desire to keep up connections with friends has increased. So when friend Pat Green suggested a get-together I worked hard to make it happen. Our plan was to meet in Salt Lake City on my way home from Colorado. Instead I flew to Salt Lake last Monday morning.

Standby is so tricky. I decided to go for the earliest flight even though it was oversold. Amazingly, I got on! You just never know how things will turn out on these flights. Sometimes the full flights are the best ones to try for since other stand-bys often don't come and paying passengers often don't show up. Monday was one of those times. I arrived in the morning with the whole day open for bonding. I felt so blessed! Pat picked me up and we headed for son Gerald's Draper home. It is a lovely place in a lovely setting, and fully stocked. We had the place to ourselves since Ger and family just left it last week. What fun to have a whole house to play in. We talked the days away, and included in our bonding a trip to the house of friends Richard and Karen Winkel. We three girls spent one afternoon huddled in a local restaurant just talking non-stop. Here's the amazing thing; at the end of that time we weren't through! In a good bond, conversation can go on indefinitely. Layne has a hard time understanding this principle, in spite of many efforts to explain it to him.

Thursday morning came very early as I stood by for another oversold early flight home. Guess what. I made that one too! What an enormous blessing my travel has been of late. And to think I don't even like to travel. In this case my traveling companion was a cute girl named Brenda who turned out to be very talkative. So I enjoyed another gab session on the trip home. You could conclude that I must be talked out by now. But I think there is still a little gab left inside yet!

The reason I came home on Thursday is that Gerald was due at our house on that day. He dropped his family and exchange students off at the LA airport and drove to our place so that we could take care of his car. He'll go home sometime this week. It has been wonderful to have him with us. He's a talker. So more bonding has filled my days since being home. He's another kindred spirit for me.

Our whole local family gathered for granddaughter Jacqueline's baptism on Saturday. Son Ben baptized her and I was blessed to speak at the stake ceremony on baptism. It was a fun assignment and I felt good about it. We also spent some time with Ben's in-laws, the Aults. They are a fine couple and I think we could be good friends if they were closer by. So this week has been as full of people connections as I could possibly hope for. My spirit has loved it. But my body is beat.

The top picture is of friends Pat Green (on the left) and Karen Wilkey (on the right). The middle picture shows my three sons: Benjamin, Gerald and Reed. The bottom picture is Ben with his oldest daughter Jacqueline, on her baptism day.