Rich

Over the weekend my husband and I attended a wedding in Kansas City.  It was a rich time. I’ve been friends with the bride for forty years, forty!  Imagine the shared stories and intertwining of lives all those years of friendship have allowed. It was rich, too, because the last few years have been tough on both of us. You learn to grab the celebration moments when you can.  I’ve seen her children grow from infants to the young adults who stood beside their mom as she married.  I could scarcely take it in.

It was also my birthday weekend so I was treated to surprises, cards, calls, texts from friends I’ve accrued all along the way.  Then as life would have it, we got word of two friends we’ve known for decades who lost loved ones over the weekend.  We will love and support these friends through their losses because that’s what friends do.

Anne Lamott in her book, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, said it well, “Most humbling of all is to comprehend the lifesaving gift that your pit crew of people has been for you, and the all the experiences you have shared, the journeys together, the collaborations, births and deaths, divorces, rehab and vacations, the solidarity you have shown one another.  Every so often you realize that without all of them your life would be barren and pathetic….The marvel is…that somehow you lured them into your web twenty years ago, forty years ago, and they totally stuck with you.”

Today I’m so grateful for the lifesaving gift of my pit crew of people.  When she was alive, my husband’s Mamaw used to take my face in her hands, lock eyes with me and say, “Cindy, do you know you are rich, rich, rich?”  Yes, Mamaw, I do.