Happy Birthday friend

The gloomy skies were endless until I got to Afton Mtn, 70 miles from home. There was enough sun to make a shadow! My faith was renewed that the sun really hadn’t gone away. Four days of clouds sure have hidden it well.

Anyway I was on the way to see my friend Anne. Her birthday present was carefully packed and wrapped, too fragile to trust anyone else with it and I hadn’t seen her in too long.

The trip was uneventful, just long. Finally I arrived at Anne’s home, a bungalow nestled on the edge of a ravine dropping to nowhere. We had a grand time talking about all kinds of things. We laughed about how our mothers played their roles and were so unavailable and role models of how not to be. We cherished our aunts who cherished us, her Aunt Anne and my Aunt Kate, our role models for life. Our fathers scared each other. Brothers were scary and so were the houses we lived in. And on our conversations went with laughs, grins and fond memories of life long ago.

Her present was received with hugs, laughs and beach stories. We’re both beach bums at heart with sand between our toes. Her present was a perpetual beach – a castle-shaped bucket filled with sand, shells and starfish gathered from many visits to the Outer Banks.

Did I mention we’ve been friends since kindergarten?