November 20, 2008

Old friends and pass the manna please....

Thank you to all who left a message for us on that last post. Things are calming down. Emmanuel is still doing about the same and life is moving on....

Yesterday I got home from work and at 2:30pm looked at the answering machine. I had a message from Karen, who I grew up with. We went to the same church. The father of a dear friend Jonathan, from those days had passed away and the funeral was yesterday at 3pm. She ended up picking me up, then we went to the funeral and to the family's home afterwards. It never stops amazing me how friendships can just pick up again, feeling as tight as ever, even after years of not seeing each other. Karen and I have a little tradition going of attending funerals together now...usually the parents of our old friends from youth group but a couple of times it is one of our peers. She calls me and I hop in and off we go. We made a promise to try to get together at times other than funerals but we'll see. ;)

We all talked a lot of old times and the present, all intermingled as if there was no such thing as a timeline. Old jokes were still remembered. News was shared and when we were just barely getting caught up with each other, it was time to go. It is cool to have people like that in your life....people you have a history with, know where you came from and appreciate who you are today.

As for Carl, Jonathan's father, the funeral was so honoring and it was great to see how many lives he and his wife have touched! They have always had a huge place in their hearts and in their home for international students and people displaced from family. They truly have had a consistent spiritual gift of hospitality and service during their life. People kept getting up and saying how wonderful he was to them, that they felt at home with and loved by him. And that is true, but I kept thinking of his other side. I knew Carl not only from being Jon's dad, but he was also my college dorm caretaker. He had a snarky side to his personality and that is what I remembered well. I was 13 I think when his family came to our church. Carl always called me Cindy....and I always said, no, it's Christie. After a few months of this, I decided I would just call him Chuck. He didn't like being called Chuck so it fit my purpose just right. The whole time I knew him, he would say, "hi Cindy" and I'd snark back, "Hi Chuck!" Then he would just scowl at me. heehee He also helped us kidnap and hold for ransom a certain college professor's recliner from his office during finals one year. I talked him into letting us into his office and the whole time he was doing it, he kept saying, "Well I don't think I should be doing this......I don't know....this is gonna get me in trouble, etc etc" Every time I mentioned it after that time, he would act all scared and nervous and shush me like we had broken into the FBI offices or something. He was a lot of fun and I will miss hearing about his news in his wife's yearly Christmas letter.

I can't help but be a little envious of people I know who have already gone on into the Presence of God nowadays....

1 comment:

mmichele said...

oohh... lots of love to you.