Tom and I just returned from our friend's memorial service, well, from the luncheon afterward.

What a delight to visit with old friends who we'd not seen in months or years, but oh, I do wish the occasion had been a different one.

I am still reeling, still unable to believe there is no more John here other than the John of my memories. And I'm glad I have lots of memories--I'm grateful we had many lunches together with John and Donna down through the years, grateful, too , that they often dropped by our farm on whims even though we lived way out in the country. Or perhaps that was partly why, for they both enjoy countryside drives as Tom and I do.

Never before have we lost a good local friend and less than a year ago we experienced the first loss of a faraway true close friend. Tom and I are at that age, the beginning of a time when these things will happen more regularly--

--and oh, the lessons. Get together now while you can. Share meals and stories and adventures and make many, many memories, for someday they may be what carries you along until you meet again whole years later in a faraway place from these shores.

And that's what I thought about while Tom and I sat at the luncheon with one especially dear old friend who we'd not seen in way too many years. He and his wife are so special to us yet Life loves to erect barriers which keep us from visiting. But sometimes you must push past all that and make things happen, make more memories, so that when you've reached the end you can look back and see that --with as much as it was up to you--things went the way God wanted them to.

For I believe that to be an important thing.


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