Kathleen

Deviating today from the normal knitting blog.

I'd like to tell you about about my friend, Kathleen. She's more than your average friend.

Kathleen and I were co-workers several years ago. We were three women in this small but beautiful office with a view of the mountains that was to die for. My first impression of Kathleen was that she was indeed very friendly, bubbly and warm. She was young enough to be my daughter. I used to laughingly tell her she was the office social butterfly, going up and down the halls making sure everyone was doing ok, etc.


Kathleen had already lost weight to be at optimal health in anticipation of invitro fertilization. There were times when she would laugh and tell me she knew she was telling me more than I wanted to know. Finally, Kathleen was pregnant. She shared the ultrasound pictures and we discovered that there were to be two babies. She shared her life but she did not want anyone to know the sex of her babies including herself.


We laughed. I had post-it notes on my bulletin board with names of two girls, names of two boys, and names if it was to be one of each. Every other day Kathleen would change her mind on the names so thus the post-it notes allowed for easy changes as I was having difficulty remembering all the possible names.

Kathleen had twin boys, Owen and William, six years ago today, and I fell in love with the boys. Happy Birthday, Owen and William.

Much to my chagrin Kathleen and family moved about 7 hours away but we stayed in touch.

On one of Kathleen's visits, the boys were not quite 3 years old. While she was tending to one in another room, Owen spoke to me. I couldn't understand him as his speech was still difficult to comprehend. "Can you say that again, Owen?" Again, I couldn't understand. "One more time, please, Owen," I said. Owen jumped up on the couch, took a couple steps towards me, cupped his little hand around my ear and SHOUTED!. You see, with all his young confidence, surely I must be hard of hearing as he certainly could understand what he was trying to tell me. Kids are so precious and innocent, aren't they!!!


Recently, I came home and there was a package waiting for me from Kathleen. My first thought was, "I sure hope there's a picture of the boys in that package!". Well there was (and handsome at age 6 today, they are) along with a beautiful framed picture of a lighthouse with it's history card on the back. (I'm a lighthouse collector.) But even more precious was the note........... which ended with "I miss you, Joan. Please feel free to come visit anytime."


Kathleen had no idea what that note meant to me that day. But thank you, Kathleen.