continuity

By the time I left for college, my family had lived in four different towns, in four very different parts of the country. Oddly enough, I always liked moving--the sense of unknown possibilities was enticing. Living in different places probably helped reinforce our family culture and cohesion, but it also meant I didn't grow up alongside the same friends. I have no idea what happened to all the boys and girls from my kindergarten class (though I remember them vividly) and sometimes that makes me sad.

When my young family left Lancaster to move to Annapolis, we left a cherished weekly tradition, one whose absence was especially felt by then three-year-old Frances. How she missed Family Dinner! My heart broke each time she asked when we could have dinner with our friends. Mama, isn't anyone ever going to come over again...?

Over the weekend our Family Dinner friends came for a visit. Things are different now. Younger siblings are full participants (though older siblings occasionally try to shut them out). We live in different towns, with different jobs and different big kid parenting quandaries to face. But Family Dinner still really, really hits the spot.

Sometimes we parents would sit and watch Frances and Henry, spellbound. How could we not be flooded with memories of the two of them as toddlers together...? Their long thin arms as they sat shoulder to shoulder over some secret project recalled their chubby bodies in the shared double stroller that they rode in to toddler Montessori preschool class. They were so dear. And frustrating. And we were so new at all this.

Despite some unfortunate big kid clubbiness (the rule is NO EXCLUDING, you two), for the most part I felt a bittersweet joy seeing the two of them, marveling at how intimate they are, how different and yet how close. How their friendship (which has had some seriously rocky moments) seems to weather the distance. My heart aches for the babies they once were, and flutters with the hope that their special friendship can continue to grow as they do and transcend the boy-girl divide.

And do you see those little ones in the background? They didn't have the benefit of weekly Family Dinners to cement their friendship, but they seem to be growing into one nonetheless. Normally I deeply resent the child who wakes me before six am, but emerging from sleep to the voices of Gabriel and Aggie, talking earnestly in the bunk beds about past injuries (does it still hurt?) and planning what they'd like to play...? That was very, very sweet.

There is something special about a friend you've had since before you can remember.

I think it gives Frances (and Henry too, I hope) a sense of knowing, and being known. Her place in the world is unquestionable when she's with her friend. Things are as they should be. And the nice thing (at least this time) is that the feeling lingers, even after the good-byes. What a gift.