Crossing Paths

First, let met say thank you to everyone who voted for me in the photo contest. As of this writing, I do not know who won, but I am grateful to you all for kind words and support.

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I have always been a firm believer in the notion that friends come and go into your life whenever you most need them. For the most part, I have few close friends, and one of them has been a friend for nearly 40 years. I have other good people who have come and gone in my life, and whenever they come back across my path, for the most part, I'm grateful for their "re-entry" and enjoy them for whatever time they are around.

I've been having fitful dreams lately and not sleeping well, and one morning I realized that I had been having dreams about a friend with whom I had been close for about a year but who drifted away due to our having differing schedules and various situations. I chalked the dreams up to nothing, but then I remembered my black cat, twitchy feeling of last week.

Today was the first day back to school from spring break, and since our weather has been glorious, I drove home from picking up the kids with the windows down. The kids and I were laughing about this and that, when just a few houses down from our own, I spied someone standing on the side of the road talking to a neighbor. I got that twitchy feeling, as if I knew that person, but I shook it off. Just as we passed, my daughter turned to me and asked, "Hey, Mom, isn't that Mr. P?"

I quickly made a U-turn to confirm my suspicions because my daughter expressed aloud the very thought that had crossed my mind unspoken!

As I pulled up towards the two men standing by the side of the road, the man who I thought was my "long-lost" friend turned to face me, grinning from ear to ear. As I got out of the car, he walked across the street and embraced me in a crushing bear hug.

As it turns out, as of this week, he and his family will be my new neighbors just down the block. I suppose this was the reason for my black-cat feeling, but rather than it being a message of foreboding, it was one of foreshadowing. I look forward to greeting my new neighbors; he's already promised to put up a hoop and shoot baskets with The Lass. She's looking forward to it.

May you find new treasures, or rediscover lost ones, in your lives, my friends. Later daze.....