Old Friends

They are both old friends - one has kept my husband company in his many years alone and the other was a friend who let me speak without words in my many years alone.

Yesterday as Astrophe ventured outside and lay on the deck, I watched her settle down in the warmth of the spring sunshine. She has spent almost 20 year following my husband around as he worked on the property creating something beautiful out of this raw land. Now she has a broken hip and the warm bathroom floor is where she comes once the weather cools down until it is warm enough again to take her frail body outside. Picking her up you feel her thinness and fragility, yet she snuggles into your shoulder, placing her head into your neck and begins to purr, to sing, reminding you she still has comfort to freely offer. She is a comforting little friend to me now too.

Almost 23 years ago I traded my original piano in when it needed far more work done on it than I could afford. This one came home with me and has provided a place to let the music become the words that could not be articulated - either for celebration or for grieving, or just for being. For the past 7 years it has been played by many hands as it sat in the great room at Linwood House. But now this old friend to come to our little house in the woods and for me once again to be the voice for the words I cannot always express.

There are many old friends we have on our journeying. Some speak with us, others speak for us. But who or whatever they are, it is wonderful when we are in the same place together.