When you weave, the weft thread finds its pattern between the raised and lowered warp threads and then half-circles back for its next row, adding continuity and the strength and smoothness of a selvedge at the sides of the piece being created.
I signed into the big blue website to read Sean of the South’s essay of the day and to wish anybody a happy birthday that might need it before trying to escape the clutches of its algorithms…
And saw the friend suggestion with mutual friends listed.
I stared at the screen, speechless. How. On. Earth.
So I went up to this good woman today who’d moved in about a year and a half ago and asked, How do you know Jordan and Jennifer in Texas?
Stopped her right there mid-motion. Her jaw. Dropped.
JEF?! How do *you* know Jef?!
(Okay, now I really knew she knew her!)
Said in the most faux-nonchalant trying-not-to-laugh tone, I answered, I’ve been married to her brother for 45 years.
It was fun to watch her being as staggered as I’d been last night.
And then I realized I’d seen her on one of our visits to the in-laws.
Turns out my brother-in-law had helped her husband land his first post-medical-training job. She was the one who, after my father-in-law was widowed, gave my sister-in-law a break by visiting him every week with her little boy, bringing a loaf of homemade bread and getting to know this character of an old guy who loved to make you laugh.
They’d moved since then, and then again to here.
All these months we had all had not a single clue.
She asked after DadH and I said, Six years I think? Richard called him to wish him a Merry Christmas and all the sudden mid-conversation was exclaiming, Dad?? …DAD!?!!!! He called his brother, who was there and rushed him to the hospital, and then he was quietly gone.
I forgot to mention DadH’s then-98-year-old friend in their ward who’d played in a band with some of his buddies at assisted living places to help keep the old folks company. I know she knew him. How could you miss him. Next week.