Friends

I have been thinking lately about people that come and go into our lives.  I have several friends that are going through a difficult time lately.  My friend Sarah is having her decompression surgery at the end of the month. She had a fundraiser and amazing people donated to help her family pay for the surgery.   My friend Tricia (that had the double lung transplant 4 years ago) is having rejection and is back in the hospital. She's making the most of a bad situation and is much more graceful than I could be in the same situation.    One of my best college friends had his children taken away from him for over a month.  I told him that the truth would come out and that he would get his kids back  Finally, the truth came out and he is getting them back.

I have friends that I have forgotten.  Not because I wanted to, but because their time in the season of my life ended.  With all the seizures I had in the mid-90's, I lost a lot of my friendship memories.  Some of them are coming back and some I suspect will be lost unless someone can help jog my memory.  In the process of packing and unpacking --- I found something.  One Valentine's Day I was given a box of chocolate.  In that box starting middle school and to my first semester of college, I put things in that meant something to me.  Mostly letters or post cards or something.

I saw the box and opened some of them and thought, "WHY on earth did I keep that?" Although I do remember how I felt when I got some of those letters and they will probably remain in the little box --- I saw a card.  I vaguely remembered the card and opened it up to read the note.  What's funny is that I think I needed this note today.  I woke up this morning in a terrible mood.  I felt like I couldn't accomplish anything and was getting frustrated.

I decided I would open up one box and see what was inside.  This one box had my small box inside.  I opened the small box and went through the layers of stuff.  I hid this box in a special place in my room in high school.  I grabbed the card and opened it up and read the message.  "Jennifer, I love you.  You keep your head up, no matter how much you don't want to!  You can do it Jennifer.  Use your own self determination.  You have plenty of it.  You just have to tap into it.  My prayers and my love are with you.  Smile. :)  Freda."  At the top of the card, it says, "After the rain, the moon rises like a pearl."

I have scrambled my brain to remember Freda.  I honestly can not put a single picture to her name.  I am hoping that someone else from my past can help me remember her.  The only thing I might can think is that maybe she was in one of my first semester college classes or on my hall.  She's on of the many people that came into my life at just the right moment and here she is possibly 17 years later impacting my life again and her words moved me to tears. 

Dear Freda,

Although I can't remember you or things we did together, I remember how you made me feel.  I would like to thank you so very much for writing words that would impact me at 19 and again at 36.

Jennifer (or as you must have called me --- Shorty -  see that's the other thing, not that many people do I allow to give me nicknames, much less write them --- so that tells me you must have been really special in my life for me to keep the note past the nickname you wrote at the top)