Day 328 Six Thousand More Pages

November 2, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

Smiles that embrace life (Photo by David Ettlin)

Often when people divorce, the couple's mutual friends also divorce one of them. I’m happy to say that did not happen to me. It’s a win-win situation. I remain friends with husband number one’s cousins. Husband number two and I even stayed with one of the cousins who lives in Australia. Today, husband number two, my David of 35 years, and I had lunch with an old friend I knew through husband number one, Scott.

Kath goes back to more than 50 years ago when, in my other life, I was introduced to camping and backpacking with her family. She is an adventurous, very smart and fun human being. Since then, her husband has passed away and her family has grown to include great-grandchildren. She is 17 years older than I am and a wonderful role model. We often talk about books and recommend our favorites to one another. She is presently reading Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization and is on volume number four out of eleven. The entire set includes close to 10,000 pages which she expects to complete.

Like most grandmothers and great-grandmothers, she loves and keeps up with her family, laughs with them and cries with them. Unlike many great-grandmothers, she keeps up to date with the technology they use and checks up on them on Facebook. Unlike many people her age, she is not stuck in the past, is a life-long learner, has a positive outlook and holds her end in intellectual conversations.  And quite unlike her peers, she has an informed liberal outlook. It is no wonder that I enjoy spending time with my “young” friend.

My gift today is lunch with a long-time friend.

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Epilogue: January 25, 1928 ~ December 22, 2016.  A little more than a year after I wrote this, Kath passed away. Her funeral was today, December 28. I don't know how many pages she got to read before she died. What I do know is that her family and friends have many more metaphorical pages in our lives, narratives yet to unfold. We can be sure that Kath will live in those pages because we have known and loved her.





> Day 329: Maryjane's Candy

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html