Old friends and memories...

LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy. Hab. 3:2 NIV

I want to take a few moments to process how God has been at work since my mom's death May 23. Besides the usual emotions, I've noticed that God has touched my life with a variety and interesting group of people. Some of them are old friends. Some of them are relatives both known to me and new. Some are [were] youth that I worked with when I was a volunteer. Some were people that I sort of remember.

This probably won't make a lot of sense to you but that's my issue not yours. I've just been burned with the need to share what has been happening the last two months.

Family: I met Jerry, a cousin from the Wilkerson family that I met when I was 3 or 4 years old. We got to visit over coffee and share some things about family and our genealogy hobby. Sadly, my mom never knew he lived less than 15 minutes from her place.

I connected once more with cousins who I ran around with in Reno. Vicki lives in Washington,is a DVM, and owns a ranch. I spoke with my surviving aunt, Dawn, who couldn't make the service. She and my mom were roomies for a few years after my dad died.* Her son, Dale, works in Las Vegas and is Dawn's caregiver. Dawn's daughter Karen and granddaughter Sara were at the service. Sara spent much of the summer at the mobile home park during the years my mom and Dawn lived together.

Judy, Max and Kathleen's daughter was there too. I receive the most thoughtful letter of memories today from her. My cousin Philip wanted come down from Reno but was in Colorado on family business. Others health just wouldn't allow them to make the trip.


Friends: A couple from Reno came with their daughter and son-in-law. They had been in the Hawthorne church I served and their daughter was good friends with my kids. Besides just visiting with them it was great to hear their son-in-law is looking toward an education with Multnomah University through their distance learning.

Ken Couser and his mom, Carol was at the service. His mom was a den mother for me and both his dad and mine were involved in our scout troop. Ken and I shared close to 12 years together through school. We were on PVHS' swim team, [I had a different body then]. We hung out at the same lunch tables and Ken, Neil and I were pretty much inseparable. It was great to see them and to cement a relationship that was simply posts on Facebook up till then.

Katie Nelson and I played phone tag for a couple of days. She was in the high school group at 1st Presbyterian Richmond in which I served in the seventies. We had a great talk about old times and she affirmed me in ways she'll never know during our talk. She is living a boring life she says, "Same job, same kids, same house, same marriage..."

Then there is the contact with two other childhood friends. John who lives in Portland and Freddy an elementary school friend. High school, exploring fields, riding bikes were part of the history with these two. Then I connected with another member from our home church in Richmond by comments on another blogger's post.

What I know is that God is doing more than playing "six degrees of separation" with my life. I can't help but recall Israel being reminded of what went before and the command to remember. I can't help but think back to the formative days of my faith under the tutelage of Denn, Ron, Paul, Lloyd, Judd and others. All I can say is thank you Lord and I wait for your leading.
Peace,
Alan

* IMHO Dawn and my mom were twins who were born a year apart. If one of them yelled at us my cousin Dale and I couldn’t tell which one it was.