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Category: friends

A Birthday

A Birthday

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Through the years, birthdays become attached to the people who hold them. Today will always be Nancy’s day, even though Nancy is gone. 

It was on this day, long ago, that I landed in Europe for the first time. The date wasn’t accidental. It was Nancy’s 20th birthday, and I was meeting her in Luxembourg. We had planned to be chamber maids in a Swiss hotel, but our employment fell through at the last minute. Instead, we traveled through Europe for two months on what I will politely call a lean budget. 

We trudged through London in rain so heavy I thought my shoes would never dry out. We explored what seemed like every Viennese hovel in which Beethoven had ever lived (and there were a lot of them). We toured Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome and Pisa. We scrambled to find places to sleep, and sometimes they were train compartments. 

The trip cemented our friendship, brought it through the decades. I think of our travels now with great wonder and gladness. They bring Nancy closer, which is where I want her to be. 

(Nancy and I spent many hours in train stations, though not this one, which is in Edinburgh.) 

Immortality

Immortality

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Today, my dear friend Nancy will be laid to rest in the Indiana earth, less than 150 miles from where we first met. But where is she now, really? 

My faith tells me that she is sleeping and will rise in glory on the Last Day. My skeptical self says, “Hmmm…” 

One thing I know for sure: Nancy lives on in the hearts of those who love her. It’s an immortality in which we all can believe — and to which we all can aspire. 

(The Bernini columns in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, one of many wonders I saw for the first time with Nancy. Photo: Wikipedia)

For Nancy

For Nancy

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I met Nancy on our first day at Hanover College when we were homesick 18-year-olds. We missed our families, we loved to travel, we lived across the hall from each other. So we neglected our bio lab reports and stayed up late to hatch crazy schemes. Maybe we’d take a tramp steamer across the Atlantic or be chambermaids in a Swiss hotel. We didn’t quite pull off those adventures, but we did travel through Europe for two months on $5 ($3?) a day, surviving on baguettes and water. We’d gotten so skinny that Nancy’s own grandmother didn’t recognize her when she picked us up at the airport. 

Nancy and I stayed close through college and early adulthood. When Tom (another Hanoverian) and I moved to northern Virginia, Nancy, who’d lived here since grad school, quickly became an honorary aunt to our three daughters. 

Through the years, Nancy was at most every birthday party, graduation and other special event. She’s part of Suzanne’s first memory because it was Aunt Nancy who took care of her when Claire was born. Nancy even loved our sweet rascal of a dog, Copper. 

Nancy was a lawyer, historian and indexer extraordinaire. A proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, she traced her lineage back to Revolutionary War stock. One of her first and most notable jobs was at Mount Vernon, Washington’s home. 

Nancy continued to travel the country and the world, skiing in Colorado, bicycling in the Netherlands, visiting Israel, Jordan, Greece and Eastern Europe. For the last eight years or so, her travel has been up and down I-95 as she spent much time in Massachusetts caring for her parents. A devoted daughter, a loving sister, an exemplary friend. 

Three weeks ago, we learned that Nancy, always caring for others, was seriously ill herself. Friends and family flocked to her side. Her older sister dropped everything and virtually lived at the hospital. We saw Nancy as much as we could, but not nearly enough. It’s never enough when you can’t imagine the world without the person you’re visiting. 

Nancy slipped away over the weekend. I still can’t believe it. I wonder if I ever will. 

(Nancy, right, with our pal Peggy, another dear college friend)

Long River

Long River

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This morning I’m thinking of friendship, especially friendship of long standing. People who go back years and how much they become a part of your life. 

I had time to contemplate this on the drive home yesterday, which was up into the mountains where it barely looked like spring, then down into the alleys where spring is in full flower.

Longtime friendship is like that, too, seasons and altitudes, peaks and valleys. Through them all, a long river of connection. 

Friends on the Trail

Friends on the Trail

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Yesterday a long walk took me through Reston’s Vernon Walker Nature Center, over a small bridge and up a trail to South Lakes Drive, then along to the cut-through where I caught the Lake Audubon Trail. 

The wind picked up a bit as I strolled around the lake, not enough to stir whitecaps but enough to make me stuff my hands up my sleeves. 

The last leg of yesterday’s amble was on the Glade Trail. I was picking up speed, thinking of things yet to do at home, when I ran into a new acquaintance, someone from yoga class. She introduced me to her friends and we all chatted for a few minutes. 

It was small talk, really, but fun to find friends on the trail. It warmed the walk and changed my day.

(Reston’s first naturalist, Vernon Walker. More on him and the Nature Center in future posts. Photo: Reston Museum)

In Person

In Person

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It’s been four years since a virus from China began to enter our consciousness, slowly at first (it was so far away!) but eventually spreading around the world and taking over our lives.

Last night I hosted book group at my house, the first in-person meeting here since 2019. It felt good to sit in each other’s presence, to laugh and talk and drink tea, to plan for the future. The four years we spent on Zoom were good in their own way, but I’m glad we’re back in person. 

Four years have brought other changes. In the past, I would rush home from work to vacuum, dust and bake, barely finishing the prep before the first guest knocked on the door.  Tonight’s do was different. I had time to wash out the delicate Belleek sugar bowl and cream pitcher, to arrange squares of dark chocolate on a plate in honor of the book we discussed — Bittersweet.  I even had a chance to look over the notes I’d taken on the book. 

Sometimes I miss the hectic life I used to lead. And sometimes (less often) I miss Zoom. But I didn’t miss either of them last night.

(In person in a bookstore — with a friend, of course.)

Out of the Zone

Out of the Zone

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One of the most noteworthy things about this new phase of life is discovering how much I must force myself out of my comfort zone. I’ve always done this to an extent, but I could always count on paid employment to do the rest, especially my last gig.

Now I must make myself do the hard things. What are these “hard things”? Don’t laugh. Driving home on narrow country roads in the dark so that I can be with a bunch of people I work with but almost never see. (See yesterday’s post.) Practicing finger exercises and learning new piano pieces s-l-o-w-l-y because otherwise I won’t learn them at all. Taking tough classes. Making new friends. Forging new trails. 

The key word here is new. It’s not always easy but it’s almost always worth it. 

“Run Towards the Danger”

“Run Towards the Danger”

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I just finished reading Sarah Polley’s memoir Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory. It’s not a book I’d heard about before, but a dear friend loaned it to me, put it in my hands, said it was written by the screenwriter of “Women Talking” and I would love it.

At first, I thought it would be a replay of “Women Talking,” which I enjoyed but wasn’t sure I wanted to relive.  Then, a few pages in, I almost put it down because the opening essay is about Polley’s scoliosis, a condition that runs in our family and about which I have a fair amount of guilt. 

But it is not about “Women Talking” and I pressed on through the scoliosis parts, and less than two weeks later I finished the book, wanting more. 

Honesty is endearing, and Sarah Polley is not only scrupulously honest, but honestly funny, even when she’s describing sexual abuse, placenta previa and a concussion. The book’s title and theme, “run towards the danger,” come from her neurologist, who not only heals her brain but gives her a motto to live by — don’t shy away from what frightens you, embrace it instead. Not a bad message for this (or perhaps any) stage of life. So here’s to books loaned by friends — and friends who loan books. Sometimes they know what you need better than you do. 

(It’s telling I had to hunt for a photo to illustrate this post. Are the “Exorcist Stairs” as close as I come to danger?) 

Instead of a Card

Instead of a Card

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We met when we were just out of college working at our first “grownup” jobs in Chicago. We’d joined our church choir, which was planning a concert of Handel’s Messiah later that year, and Cathy and I bonded over long rehearsals in the ornate sanctuary of St. Clement’s. 

It was the springtime of our lives, and the possibilities seemed limitless. Would we stay in Chicago?  Would we marry and have children? Would we stay in touch?  No, yes and absolutely. We never missed Christmas or a birthday. Until this year. 

When May 31 arrived and there was no card from Cathy, I was worried. I learned a few weeks later that she passed away in April from the breast cancer she’d been fighting for several years. 

Cathy was loving and cheerful to the end: a devoted wife, mother, daughter, colleague and friend who is missed and mourned by all who knew her. Today, August 31, is Cathy’s birthday. I can’t send her a card — but I can write her this post. Happy Birthday, Cathy! I will never forget you!

The Big Picture

The Big Picture

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As the sky slowly lightens on this Valentine’s Day, I think of all the ones who are dear to me.

The little ones and the big ones, the old ones and the young ones (including a great niece born on Saturday!), the human ones and the furred and feathered ones, the ones who are no longer with us, too.

Happy is the day set aside for love and chocolate, so today I resolve to keep the big picture in mind. 

And that is, and always will be, love.