connections

Crackles and a roar from the old cast iron stove give evidence that the living space in the old farm house will soon be warmer. With animals and humans fed, it’s time for thoughtful and thankful reflection upon God’s gifts. The wonder of renewed connections since this year began has been amazing. Not only has there been reconnection with dear college friends, but also with a cherished cousin from whom contact had been lost for years. Another delight arrived just a few nights ago when we discovered that our former Pastor from our church in Connecticut is living less thirty miles away. A quick email to the contact information we found prompted a rapid and welcoming response from the man who baptized our daughter. Memories flooded my mind as we emailed back and forth with only highlights of the years since Milford. Our task will now be to establish a time when we can reconnect face to face with this inspiring man and his equally engaging wife. Reflecting now on the wonder of friends, family, and acquaintances, I give thanks to the creator of relationships whose demonstration of grace and mercy has and will continue to be the model upon which we stand. Not only have we established delightful new acquaintances over the past year here, but we have also uncovered older connections that add to our delight. A heap of gratitude now fills this overflowing heart!

As I climbed the rickety stairs to the quaint old banquet room I was full of anticipation. A reunion of family members from my paternal grandmother’s family was about to begin. A plethora of strange faces confirmed the distance in time and genetics that had invaded over the years. The accuracy of my destination was soon confirmed by a few familiar faces, even some seen just the past week. As conversations engaged about family connections from one person to another, I caught a strangely familiar face out of the corner of my eye as the woman glanced my way. She was chatting with another familiar cousin who had engineered the reunion unfolding. I made my way over to see who she was and discovered a distant cousin I had not seen in fifty years. Her father had given me my first pony and my first bicycle. I still possess the latter, tucked away in the storage shed adjacent to the farm house. The pony is long gone, but the fond memories of my uncle flooded the present as we talked about my family and hers. She is my father’s first cousin and although older than I, seemed very much a part of my childhood generation. She remembered me as the pesky little kid always hanging around. As I sat beside another cousin visiting from Japan and across the table from my renewed acquaintance, I marveled at the wonder of new connections with old memories brought into today’s domain. I looked at their faces and other familiar ones around and was flooded with a plethora of emotions. Pleasant memories surfaced as I realized that even though I may never see these precious people again (by virtue of sheer distance and time), I was filled with gratefulness for the moment at hand. On the leisurely drive home, a storehouse of those memories that were shelved behind busy schedules and seemingly urgent agendas began to be unpacked. On that day I discovered another thread in the tapestry that I am experiencing as life and am so thankful to the Master Weaver.

They both shared bright smiles as we greeted one another. It had been over forty years since my cousin and I had seen each other and here she was before me, with her husband by her side. They had arrived in the States just the week before. My cousin and her husband went to Japan in 1981 as missionaries. He is pastor of a church there now and also teaches at a university near their home. The glow of the smile that even lights up her eyes is the same as I remember from those childhood years when our families would visit at their home or ours. My cousin also lives with Parkinson’s disease. She was just diagnosed in August of this year, so she is in the early stages of wrapping her mind around the concept of the disease and what it does and does not mean. Her journey to diagnosis was circuitous. Amplifying her symptoms may be an apparently non-invasive brain tumor she has known about for a few years. Regardless of symptoms and challenges wrought there from, our time together was filled with memories and the joy of current events. We will see each other again in a few days at a family reunion and I look forward to greeting distant relatives from long ago. My cousin will be a frequent contributor to this blog, once she is back in Japan and settled into her routine. As she and her husband drove away on their journey to her brother’s house, I paused to utter a prayer of thankfulness for fond memories and re-connections having been made. I am discovering blessings of connections new and renewed.

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