On Tuesdays we write letters.  I think I got the idea from Tuesdays with Morrie, though I don’t really remember what happens in that book.  Recently Miles actually just began writing them himself, which is as cute as it is convenient, being a scribe can sometimes be confusing -getting the write message down and all… sometimes my adult brain just makes it more complicated than it was meant to be.  The last two Tuesdays we wrote letters to a new batch of pen pals.  A pal for each of our family members, matched up so perfectly.  We never thought this day would really come.  I think we sealed the envelopes up with our tears.

A year ago from last May we drove down a dirt road and turned right at a statue of a little boy fishing, pulled up to a house that would become as comfortable to us as our own home in the year to come, then shared a good meal and a cold beer with its occupants.  It was a warm May-day with forsythia all a bloom and lilac scent wafting through the sky.  We sat in front of their garden, spoke of the work to come in it, and talked and talked and talked some more.  There were squabbles with our kids, but we were all good-hearted about them and they cooked so well we didn’t care how many times our Rowan pushed down their Owen, we would be back.

And back we came, and forth too.  My sweet friend, sister is more like it;  We shared so much this last year.  More than I think I can even begin to understand.  We shared the love of our children becoming best friends, seeing them fit together like peanut butter and jelly.  We shared the comfort in the companionship that our husbands found in each other, a rare thing for our busy, quiet men folk.  We shared knitting needles, recipes, tears, clothes, pillows, laughter, memories, patterns, joys, and concerns.  When this summer came around we shared a batch of seeds to make a cutting garden.   We shared a pregnancy.   Then those flowers grew right alongside our growing bellies and when our sweet little boys were born just two weeks apart we shared the shock and beauty of becoming a family of five.  Having this experience bound us in a way that only the petals and stems can understand.  We just are.

Her family had a chance to move on from this little sliver of a state, to something that provided them with certainty and consistency, and of course, of course, they took it.  It was always known this day would come, but for some reason I thought maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t.  I helped her pull up her massive love lies bleeding, purple globe amaranth, the ever useful Calendula and all the rest of her cut flower garden a few weeks ago.  We both had our babies dangling from slings while we silently remembered all that we passed between our souls.

My heart misses them in a way I never knew I could feel.  It really hasn’t settled completely, I can’t imagine not calling them up this weekend to get together and turn our kids loose.  Their friendship was my coffee in the morning and my ice cream out of the container at night. I am so grateful to have met them.  I know with the sureness that the world will continue to turn round and round that our friendship will remain.  Thank you Weeds for the most welcoming welcome a family could ever have, and the most spectacular year in my memory.  We love you all so, so much.