An Evening of Looking Back

Last evening I was invited to my dear friend Kathy’s house for her birthday dinner. She has been my lifelong friend and a frequent travelling companion. Because of her health needs, it’s good for her to have someone with her. We’re able to share costs of small trips and outings. She also invited our assistant to the pastor and his wife to join for the quiet evening meal and good conversation.

Kathy enjoys watching the Pittsburgh Pirates play on television. She buys tickets to attend many of the games at the PNC Park. As usual, I arrived early to help her with preparation should she need help. She didn’t, but she was watching a spring training game. While we waited for the guests, I gave her the birthday gift that I’d brought. She’s collected quite a bit of Pirate memorabilia and clothing, but I was able to find a baseball cap that she didn’t have and a gift certificate to one of her favorite restaurants. She’s recovering from quite a few recent health issues and it was good to see her smile.

Her pet/service dog Beauty is very shy, especially around men, but I’ve made inroads with her. I was able to approach beast and snap the leash in place. Beauty is a large black and white Great Pyrenees mix standing nearly 36 inches at the shoulder. Later as I sat talking with Kathy and waited for her other guests to arrive, Beauty moved from her “guard” dog position beside Kathy, pushed her nose close to me, and allowed me to pet her for the first time.

As her other two guests arrived, I helped Kathy pull food from the oven and refrigerator, then gathered around the table. After saying grace and began to eat, we talked about friendships and incidents in our lives, some of them turned to our relatives and about favorite hymns. Our favorite hymns also directed our conversation into the subjects of the deaths and funerals of my wife Cindy and Kathy’s parents and Sister. Kathy shared her recent telephone call to a dear friend for all four of us who had recently lost her husband. To some, this may sound morbid, but it’s a sharing of our life experiences and memories.

Life doesn’t always have to be exciting to be memorable. It’s often composed of a series of nearly insignificant events that mean relatively nothing until we look can back on them. This comfortable, quiet evening of a simple meal and conversation will be just another page in our book of our life occurrences.