Sam flew home last night; Mom flew back in this morning.  My family’s taking good care of me for a little while longer.

Mom and I went to Purlescence’s Knit Night tonight, where I cast on my new Casbah yarn, started to knit, looked at it funny a moment, counted about forty-leven times, started another row, stopped, took it back off the needle, frogged, chatted, cast on, and started to knit again–but mostly we just chatted. (Hence the frogging.)  People time!  And we all flirted shamelessly with Meg’s cute baby.  When someone I didn’t know complimented my shawl and asked if I’d made it, I proudly told her, no, Mary did.

On our way out the door, Nathania told me, Hang on a second–and handed me this  lovely get-well card card from Michelle in Ohio and this cool little tote by Debbie R that would have been perfect tonight for my small project and many a doctor’s waiting room.

Good to be out and about, and spoiled on top of that!  Watch it you guys, I’ll be insufferable before you know it.

Two and a half hours.  Stitches West.  Disneyland for knitters, totally filling the large Santa Clara Convention Center near here.  I’m exhausted.  (I know, we all knew that was going to happen.) But I’m so glad we went!

First, before we left, though, another box arrived on the doorstep: they were so tightly closed up that Sam’s first reaction when we opened the box, was, what are these?  I told her, just give them a few hours.   They’ll open up very fast.  They’re daffodils.

They have already begun to and to perfume our family room.  Two dozen flowers in a hefty vase from Kelli, a friend of mine at Purlescence, the friend who already gave me her old camera.  Goodness! That LYS (that’s Local Yarn Store in knitter’s lingo, Don) attracts very giving people.

I debated what to wear this morning, and decided blue with Chris J’s socks to match would be just the thing. I hadn’t seen her in ages, and one could only hope.  Which is how, it turned out, I got to show off to Chris J how happy my feet were and to watch her face light up, which she’d totally earned.

Sam and I of course kept running into lots of people I knew, and very occasionally one or two she did, like Karen Brayton-McFall of the old Rug and Yarn Hut.  People stopping us and they and I throwing our arms around each other.  Over and over and over.  I was mentally thinking in the direction of some of the hospital personnel of two and a half weeks ago or more, you see why I couldn’t miss this?!  You see why I had to go?!  Some of the friends there I only get to see once a year, at Stitches.  I might admit that well, there were a few times I was really glad this person or that was wearing a name tag.

You might forget a person’s name. But you never forget how they make you feel. I felt well loved, and they I’m sure did too.

Rosemary Hill of designsbyromi.com came up to me and tucked her heart shawl pin into my shawl and gave me a hug.  I wondered out loud why she wasn’t wearing Muir (which I happen to particularly like); she was wearing jewelry she’d knitted,  wire earrings (free patterns at the links) and a necklace, which makes sense, given the recent release of her book on the subject.

Gracie Larsen of the Lacy Knitters Guild asked me to come sign books and we agreed on 2:00 pm Saturday.

Sam used that as a carrot to get me to let go and give in to being tired and go home, on the grounds that I’d miss out totally on tomorrow if I overdid it today.  “You’re more tired than you think you are.”  Wise woman there.  She was right; I knew as soon as I stopped moving I would be ready to crash.  And so we came home.

And a good time was had by all.

My doctor and her nurse are both people who could teach that other nurse and would do so gently; they’re not in today, so I’ll call them again tomorrow.  You all of course are right, I do need to speak up.

I woke up this morning rather in need of being cheered up, and it turned out the UPS man had already arrived bright and early: delivering chocolate. Lake Champlain chocolate, and I already knew how good it was because I’d been to their factory store near my daughter’s home in Vermont in November.  Wow. Thank you, Amy!  And such timing.  Much appreciated.

Sam and I went off on an errand and came home to a shawl from Nancy, hanging on my doorknob, for me to gift to one of the people who’d kept me here.

I have just the person in mind. And I have nothing of my own ready to offer her. This is perfect, as are the colors.

Yesterday, while we were at the clinic, I saw a familiar face, someone who was also on their way to an appointment: it was one of the gastroenterologists who’d treated me in the hospital.  We both did a double-take and then our faces lit up in delight just before I stepped onto an elevator.  When my appointment was over, there she was again at the pharmacy with her husband.

And she was clearly in great pain.  Having a hard time standing.  He was supporting her and helping her and most of the time she sat while he dealt with the pharmacist.  My heart went out to her; I reached into my purse, found the most perfect finger puppet–a bright, handknit, multicolored toucan bird–and Sam took it over to her for me.

Her face lit up, and she asked from across the room (there was a kid coughing near her, so I didn’t want to get closer) whether I’d made it? I told her I get them from a women’s cooperative in Peru.

Cool!  She loved it, and it was fun to see her face brighten.

Her husband waved goodbye when they left, while I was wishing there were more I could do.

And now, thanks to Nancy, there is.  Healing wishes from a person she knows and one she doesn’t, very representative of what I have received, now to be passed along to her.  Perfect.

And then! The mail came. With a box I was not expecting.  From Lene.  That red box at the base of the flowers has on top of it a bar of handmade soap with a musical score imprinted in it.  Sam laughed as I squinted hard at it and tapped it out on the piano; whoever chose the music chose well, and I’m struggling to remember the name of the tune or where I heard it or played it before.

Wow.  Thank you, everyone!  I’m pretty blown away.  And I can’t wait to pass that feeling along to that doctor!

I went for my liver scan early this morning and got sent home.  At three and a half weeks, my surgery was too recent for the metal stapling inside not to be at risk from the MRI machine. They told me it needed more time for scar tissue to grow to hold it in place. There’s a chance of needing a second surgery to get rid of more tissue in a few months; let’s not up the odds of it.

When I came home, Richard astonished me by being up, getting dressed, and announcing he was off to work now.  Wow.  He *does* feel better–yay!  He just arrived home again, needing those pain pills now, but at least he was able to get some in-person time in and he can telecommute from here.  Having seen him the last three days, I am gobsmacked at how well he’s doing.  Wow, and my thank you for the prayers said and the Thinking Good Thoughts in our direction.  (I very much believe God counts those too.)

Last night, while we were eating dinner, the doorbell rang: it was Kaye from Purlescence. I hadn’t gone to Knit Night last Thursday because people there had colds, (they emailed me to warn me) and Jasmin had brought more of her handknit socks for me while I wasn’t there. So Kaye was bringing them to me.  Wow. I definitely do not live on her way home; how many LYSOs…  And how many people give away handknit socks like that!  Thank you, both of you!

I laid out the bounty and Sam admired.  I told her it wasn’t fair for me to have all these Jasmin socks and her none, particularly since she lives where warm wool socks are such an essential in the snow anyway. In the end, of the four pairs and the Jasmin socks I already owned, I was able to talk Sam into claiming three, though she could have taken more, and she very proudly showed off her happy feet this morning.

My feet were already beJasmined too.

That’s been my phrase for it.  It was the yahoo KnitTalk group that started using my name as a verb, but drive-by knitting was always my phrase for it.

I like the responses in the comments to Dad’s suggestions, and thank you. The easiest thing to do would be to set up a Ravelry place for people to share stories, there already being a place for pictures of projects and yarns there, although that excludes the non-Ravelry subscribers.  The stories are what inspire, they’re what help get people going, and I’d go for any way to make that happen, Ravelry or however.

Meantime, I got driven past, myself: a turtle showed up in the mail today, a water turtle to match my shawl pattern, one could say, because Diana felted it.  I love the cheerful colors.  Thank you!

I saw my surgeon this morning, and she was highly pleased at my progress and at the condition of my stoma and incision.  But just seeing me looking my normal self, cheerful and no longer a lump in a bed–it made her day. This is why she does what she does. To make people healthy again.

I thanked her for saving my life, and she was a bit abashed for a moment–but she had, and she knew it and I knew it.  She had admired my book in the hospital, so next I gave her a copy with that thank you for my saving my life there in the inscription.  Put it in writing.  Keep it for always. Know that the work you do and the way you go about it, visiting your patients every day before and after, is important, dear woman.  I asked her to thank her husband for loaning her to me for all that time she spent on me, which was considerable.

I did feel I had to explain to her as I stumbled trying to get up on the exam table that in real life, I use a cane for my balance.  (I don’t think she’d noticed it against the wall)  because of that car accident way back when.

Anyway. Jennie and I celebrated afterwards by going to Coupa Cafe downtown.  (I wish their site included the gorgeous long photo on the wall of the farm.)  This is a well-loved local hole-in-the-wall bringing Venezualan coffee and cacao beans directly from farm to here.  Theirs is seriously good stuff (I’m told the coffee is too) and the fact that we actually got a table almost right away was highly unusual.  If you ever want to celebrate being able to eat chocolate, this is definitely the place to do it.

And celebrate we did.  To life!

I need to work on those leg muscles a little more. I got down to snap these photos and couldn’t get back up off the floor by myself, which surprised me.  I keep thinking I’m more recovered than that.  I finally scooted over to a chair and table in the kitchen and pulled myself up–while reminding myself I couldn’t have done that at all before.  One week ago was the day I came home, and I had to have help even getting up out of a chair most of the time, much less climbing up into one.  Where my rear landed on the bed was where it was going to be for the night, with me having to lift my legs over and up with my arms.  I don’t have to do that now.  Every day there’s a little more progress made, and the “hey I can DO that now!” realizations that keep coming are very cheering.

I needed to take these photos. The soft appleblossom is a gift from Rena, my knitswap pal; the deep red, a gift from my father.  Thank you, Dad! Thank you, Rena!

My daughter Sam has been doing the most wonderful job of helping out.  She is right there for me, anticipating when I need to be drinking a little more to keep hydrated, something I need to watch, helping me decipher what the ostomy supplier on the phone is saying, straightening out my kitchen shelves and working hard.  And how many moms get one-on-one time like this with their married child?

My daughter-in-law’s mom Ann stopped by today with some elegant soaps, a bouquet of white tulips, and a hug to make my day.  Her dad had surgery today so she was in town, and I wish him a speedy recovery.

As always, she was thinking of others.  And I am the lucky recipient of that.  Wow.

Sheila Ernst has been ill herself and yet thought outside herself as well and surprised me with a beautiful pair of her handmade glass circulars, in colors I love (“Blue Moon”), blue running to gold and green and in the size, 9, she knew I use more than any other in my shawl knitting.  Some handblown glass stitch markers were in the package too.

And then there’s all the support from all of you.  I feel well loved.  How could I not heal quickly?

This is the beautiful shawl Mary surprised me with Thursday night.  I did finally find a camera, and of course it was right in plain sight. It had just enough battery power to shoot the one thing I most needed photographed, and then, to keep me humble, that was all it was going to do for the day.

My house is chilly and I find myself folding this in half and putting it over my shoulders constantly while at my favorite knitting and reading perch here.

Meantime, I finally picked up the needles last night and gave it a try. I cast on 27 for that green scarf–the scarf idea won out–and had to rest after two rows.  Then again after a few more. But I found myself picking up steam, going from wow size 9 needles feel big in my hands, to having it begin to feel natural and normal again. It felt so good to actually start to create what I’d been envisioning so long and to anticipate being well enough to walk clear across the hospital to where its recipient works.

Sam and my husband came home from shopping and found me sitting there with a growing piece of knitting in my hands.  It was fun to see their faces light up in delight.  They were thrilled.  Me too.  Me too.

While snug and warm in my shawl and under my Medicine Blanket (skip down to the third paragraph, and Robert, I hope to see you at Stitches) and another afghan made by my South Bay Knitters friends that they surprised me with as a congratulations when my book got published.

And life is good.  Cold around here–I badly need to gain some weight back and stop losing it–but my friends are taking good care of keeping me warmed.

When I was at Purlescence Thursday night, I showed them some of the yarns and the hat and Jasmin’s cashmere mitts that they’d all gifted me with in a big basket left on my doorstep right before I went into the hospital.  Jasmin’s homegrown oranges were at the bottom.

I told them that with those yarns, they’d given me hope and a sense of looking to the future while things were at their worst: because with each new nurse that came into my hospital room, I would think, ooh, (formerly) No-Blog-Rachel’s Dream Baby would look so good on her!  The Moobui would look so good on that one! Ooh, Mari’s Lisa Souza yarn would be perfect for me to knit for her!

I had over 40 nurses, and most of them I would knit for in a heartbeat and I dearly wanted to.  More than I could ever do what I wish I could do for them.

But that sense of anticipation, that desire to knit for them to tell them thank you, having yarn that was shared with me to make me feel better with and wanting to use it to pass the goodwill along–it did make me feel better. It helped get me through it all.

And I told each nurse thank you every chance I got. That much, at least, I could reliably do.

(Yeah, the cameras are still hiding out under the medical supplies or some such. Organizing is for a little later in the process.)

Mom called; I hadn’t posted yet today and she was concerned that I was doing okay.  (Yeah, Mom, I’m outing you, sorry.)  Message heard! Alive and posting!  Heh.

I wanted to go to Purlescence’s Knit Night last night, to the point that I deliberately kind of backed myself into it by calling them and saying I hoped to, and that if anyone happened to show up sick could they let me know so I could stay away?

When they heard my voice on the phone–actually, I had to identify myself, my voice is still raspy from that NG tube–the whole yarn store sent up a cheer.

That did it. I was going.

But by 7:30 I was also popping a hydrocodone to get me through it, and I avoid those and almost never take them till bedtime.  Oh well. I needed it.  My daughter, who I’ll call here by her nickname of Sam even though I obnoxiously still call her by her real name in person, did the driving.

We were about two blocks from home when she offered to turn around. I considered, and then said, no, let’s just go.  And go we did.

I stumbled in that yarn store door and into the arms and tears of my friends.  There were quite a few tears of mine going, too.  And then–

You remember Mary?  The one who made it so I could take back the shawl in the window and ship it to the woman whose husband had a brain tumor?

She handed me a circular lace shawl, warm enough for a lap robe as needed, absolutely exquisite.  I was blown away.  Later, home again, I laid it out across the top of the couch so it would again make my day this morning when I came out and saw it, and it did.  It’s gorgeous.  It’s Mary. It’s love made tangible.

Mary had lately had a project with a deadline, and she told me this other project–my shawl–nevertheless kept insisting it must go first. She couldn’t make herself get going on the deadline one till this other demanding one was satisfied and done; it just insisted it of her. And I was stunned.  And stunned that she must have gotten it done so fast. Stunned that I’d felt I needed to go that night, whether I was up to it or not, and here the shawl was and here she was and here I was and wow.

Now, Mary, I want to tell you the outcome of that and of seeing and hugging all of you. I went home with a sense of lightness that had been too long missing.  That was the first time in two months I had been in any building or room that was not my home, Stanford Hospital, or my medical clinic (and almost exclusively Urgent Care there).  Now I had been among friends.  I had taken a risk, I had stepped out to see if my body could handle an outing, and I had been treasured and loved and wrapped in comfort.

Last night, for the first time in two months, I was able to roll over in bed. By myself.  All the way from one side to the other.  This sounds silly, but I can’t tell you how huge it was.  I felt like I had crossed some invisible line: invalid, that side.  Starting to not be an invalid, that side.  And I was there.

The silly thing is I can’t find my camera nor can I find the one Kelli gifted me with a few days before I went into the hospital–I feel like Rip Van Winkle here.  They’re there somewhere, right in plain sight somewhere.

But Mom, that’s why I hadn’t posted yet. I have this exquisite shawl I want to show off and no pictures!

Yet.

You can knit a whole lot faster when you already know the road ahead.

Hat #2: down a needle size.  Smaller keyboard (and thus faster to knit), more piano–I like this one.

Michelle pointed out that it needs to be a thicker yarn to be really warm, and I chuckled at my child who was only eleven months old when we moved to California: college has taught her to appreciate warm clothes.

I regret that my children never got to make a snowman in the front yard. I have memories from when I was a kid of my Dad helping our giant balls of snow walk the plank: there was no way we could lift that midsection, so Dad set up a board and with his help we rolled it on up. The head would be smaller and lighter, so Dad simply lifted those up for us, although I remember one big snowman in the yard in front of my parents’ bedroom where it was a challenge even for him and he went looking for a longer board.  Good times.

My kids growing up in California never got to ice skate on the driveway. Or on the Canal.  Or on the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument like we did, with the Park Service running a warming bonfire on the side.  The Reflecting Pool is something like a foot deep, so if you weren’t sure the water was frozen enough, you weren’t going to get anything but really cold if you fell through.

So. No snowmen.  Yesterday I got a surprise package in the mail, one that hadn’t made it in time for Christmas, but all the better for that.  Totally unexpected.  What… From KC?  And it’s a snowman! Who knits! And sings! And waves his knitterly arms, with his ball of yarn glued to his backside (I kid you not).  Who flies through the air in his red sleigh on New Year’s Eve, delivering yarn to all the procrastinating knitters who didn’t get their Christmas presents knitted in time this year!

And yeah, he waves that nail-needle perilously close to his carrot nose, and I love him all the more for it.  I played it over and over till Michelle put her hands over her ears and wailed, “Make it STOP!”

Ya gotta love a great snowman.

Before the number of food items goes into serious decline and the Appleblossom amaryllis starts to sprout, I thought I’d better go blog quick that the KnitTalk Yahoo list has an annual opt-in knitswap, run by Margo Lynn, who gave my name to Rena this year.

I opened a box that was ready to burst on Christmas morning.  Thank you, Rena, and wow! The handknitted dishcloth alone would have been enough to totally make my day, and then there’s Zephyr in Elderberry, and chocolate, and the amaryllis, and chocolate, and a notepad, and hot chocolate, and ornaments, and hot chocolate, and a stuffed little pad for keeping my mug of cocoa warm, and did I mention hot chocolate?

I’m displaying it all on top of Robert’s handwoven Medicine Blanket, which has been the backdrop for many a blog photo by now.

On another note, my husband just got a video camera for the computer and I got to teleconference tonight with our older daughter and son-in-law in Vermont and wish Jonathan a happy birthday and actually wave hi. We all made goofy faces at each other like little kids just because we could.  Our daughter held Eve, her black cat, in front of her camera and told us how funny it had been to see Eve running off down the stairs with a ball of white yarn in her mouth, while the other grandcat at the top of the stairs was attacking the steadily-lengthening end of yarn.

Almost present.  Almost close enough to offer them a mug of hot chocolate.

But guess what I sent them for Christmas too?  And that they drank this morning, on a snowy cold day over there?

Thank you, Rena.  I love December!

Okay, first, here’s the recipe:

CRANBERRY BARS

Cookie crust: oven at 350.  Grease edges of 15x10 cookie sheet.  Cut
1 c of cold butter into 2 1/2 c flour; don't use a cuisinart or anything
that would pulverize the butter, you want it lumpy to come out crisp.  Add
1/2 c sugar and 1/2 tsp salt. Press firmly in pan, bake 20-23 minutes or
till golden.  Top with filling right away and bake again.

Filling: 4 eggs, 1 c. corn syrup, 1 c sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 3 tbl melted 
butter, 2 c
coarsely chopped cranberries, 1 c. coarsely chopped pecans.  Beat eggs,
corn syrup, sugar, and butter.  Stir in cranberries and nuts.  Immediately
pour over hot crust as it comes out of the oven, spreading it out.  Bake
25-30 minutes or until set.  Cool; refrigerate it to be able to cut it
really cleanly.

Now the story:

My son John has been on a mission for the Mormon Church for a year now. Like his brother did, he’s serving in the South.

My friend Bonnie, whom I’ve known online for ten years and have long wanted to meet in person, got to meet John instead.  He had something that needed mending; she told me her shop’s address (she’s a seamstress) and warmly welcomed him in and waved away any offer of reimbursement and then told me what a nice kid I have. Look who’s talking.  Thank you, Bonnie!

I got a phone call a few weeks ago from a member of John’s ward (congregation), asking me for a recipe for his favorite comfort-food cookies and for a few photographs of his childhood; she was going to throw a surprise Christmas party for all the missionaries around her area.

I sent off a few pictures and typed out my cranberry bar squares.  And then John got transferred to a different city last week, and that, I thought, was the end of that.

My phone rang this afternoon: the woman had the cranberry bars in the oven and wanted to know how to tell for sure when they were done.  Till the edges look golden, I told her.  But–he’s been transferred! I added, not wanting to disappoint her, but.

Yes, Christy said, she knew that.  But she was so sure it would make his day.  (Well, yeah, it totally would. He could snarf half a 15×11 pan of those by himself.)

And then she stunned me: she said her husband was a pilot and they were going to go fly the quick hop skip and a jump and take him those cookies, warm out of the oven.

Oh. My. Goodness.

She told me her own son was serving a mission in a place where she’d sent him a Christmas box in November and he hadn’t gotten it yet and probably wouldn’t in time.  She couldn’t fix that.  But she could help my kid feel loved from home and by the people around him.

How on earth can you thank someone for something like that?!

I had a friend, growing up, who felt she was not supposed to come home with dirt on her clothes. A young lady was not to do that.

Which is how I learned early on to treasure my mother’s take on us after a good day down at the creek or in the woods in the back yard: she would give us an appraising look with a grin on her face and pronounce, “You must have had *fun* getting THAT dirty!”

She had this big bicycle horn she would raise high and honk to call us home from all over the neighborhood; all the other parents and children knew that sound and if we didn’t hear it would go, Hey, you, your mom’s calling you.

We would hold back and go one at a time, then run from our game of four-square or what have you on up the sloping street to Mom, especially in the summertime when the light continued for so long after dinner: run run running trying to pick up speed and at the end leaping up into her arms where she would swing us around and around and around on the grass next to the street, often till we were so dizzy we would fall down in delight when she let us down into the grass (or if that didn’t work, airplane our arms around and around till we made ourselves dizzy enough).  Just every now and then, she would fall down laughing too.

We learned we couldn’t be jealous and try to push ahead of the next kid–Mom couldn’t catch two at once.   She was perfectly capable of turning her back and chirping cheerfully as she walked away, “Nope! Lost your chance!”  Awww, MOooooommmmm…”  We had to take turns.

I wrote in my book about my friend Lisa, who 18 years ago volunteered to watch my preschoolers Monday through Friday mornings so I could go do swim therapy after my lupus diagnosis.  And like I did with my own kids, I used to swing her preschoolers around and around like my mom had done with me.

When Lisa’s family flew back to this area for her mother-in-law’s funeral, I swung her two little boys and their little sister around and around till we all fell down, for old times’ sake, even though they were beginning to be a bit big for it.  Arthritis shmitis.  I was not about to miss the opportunity. They’d been such a big part of my life for the three years we’d traded off watching each others’ kids, and I wanted them to remember the fun parts.

Lisa later had one more child, who of course had no connection to his older siblings’ California memories.

A few years ago, they decided to come vacation in Washington DC to coincide with when we were going to be there for our oldest’s Maryland wedding reception.  We had them over to my folks’ house and had a grand time.  And before they left, in my folks’ grassy front yard, to the delight of the youngest, I ditched my now-cane and picked him up and swung him around and around and around till we both fell down laughing. (There was no way I wasn’t going over too, nowadays.)

What delighted me was the instant reaction of the older siblings to their little brother: “NOW you’ve had the Sister Hyde experience!”  They still remembered being swung around! And they were glad for him that he got to have that!

My mom taught me how to do that.

My mom taught me to laugh when life makes you dizzy.

My mom taught me to see the best in others.

My mom (and Dad, too, I should add) taught me to go play in the woods and splash in the creek.  To admire the box turtles munching the mayapples but leave the snapping turtles be. To fill the birdfeeder without fail when it was cold and to laugh at the antics of the squirrels trying to get at it (and not to mind feeding them, too).

My mom taught this high-strung child how to chill out.  When my then-bachelor brother told her he could never have six kids like she had had, that he just didn’t have the patience, she stared at her older son a moment and then guffawed, “How do you think I *learned* it?!”  On the job training!

Happy birthday, Mom. Thank you.  I speak on behalf of all of us when I say, your six kids love you. Very much.  Wishing you a little bit of creek, a little bit of dirt on your new silk blouse, and go twirl till you’re dizzy!

This time of year, the UPS drivers around here all have an extra on the truck: someone to dash to the door with the boxes while the regular driver drives to try to speed up the process with all the extra deliveries going on.  So it was an unfamiliar face that rang the doorbell, and he was halfway back to the truck by the time I opened the door and called after him my standard, “Thank you!”

The guy looked startled.  It amused me.

The second time, a few days later, same guy running, he waved back with a smile.

The third time…

There was a woman I’d known whom I’d thought had moved away years ago after she’d been widowed. She kind of dropped out of sight.  Come to find out through mutual friends this week that  she did still live here, and I said how much I’d love to see her.  I didn’t have a phone number for her.

Monday my phone rang.  They had passed the word along, and she was just as glad to hear I wanted to see her as I was that she was still in the area.

Wednesday she came over, and had just gotten out of her car when the UPS truck pulled up alongside it.  She was parked right in front of my door and was on her way to it; I had heard her car pull up and was just then opening the door to come out to greet her.

The new guy handed her my package after she told him sure; meantime, I was on my way.

I hadn’t seen her in probably ten years.  She’d changed enough I probably wouldn’t have recognized her on the street had I not had any context, unless I heard her voice, and we threw our arms around each other in great joy at seeing each other, made all the more intense for wishing we hadn’t waited so long to look each other up.  Hugs!  With that package in her hand against my back as she held me, a cane in her other hand.

I glanced up to see both men in that truck.  They’d hesitated rather than revving up the engine to go, watching, not wanting to miss that moment.  Their eyes were big and their smiles as wide as ours.

As my former UPS guy once exclaimed to me, “I love my job this time of year!”