Hugs for Bobbie

Bobbie is one of those high school classmates I re-connected with at our recent reunion.

We were not particularly close in high school, but I wasn't particularly close to most of my classmates while in high school.  My social life, such as it was, seemed to center on church activities and with the few classmates who lived at this end of the island.

Maybe we're both just a little shy about stepping into new social scenes.  I count doing things with people I didn't know particularly well then and haven't seen in all those years as "new social scenes".

Bobbie signed on for our reunion quite close to the weekend.  Because of circumstances which were not her fault and totally out of her control, those of us who were counting noses and seats on buses didn't get the word until May Day.

The memory books were due at the printer that week.  Bobbie wasn't responding to emails.  Adding another head to the meal count wasn't a problem.  Getting a biography and photograph was.

I am not a telephone fan ... at least not someone who picks up a telephone and goes exploring.  Call someone I know?  Maybe.  Call someone I don't know?  OK, as long as I have business to conduct.  Cold calling a classmate to ask for bio information?  No way.  Well, almost no way.  If I'm backed into a corner.  Was.  Turns out she has an email account, but no computer. She'd looked at the snail mail announcement, then put it in one of those safe places you usually find about 6 months after the event.

Bobbie was determined she wasn't going to put anyone out on her behalf.  I was equally determined to have something on her page in our memory book.  To not have her in our list of people who didn't care enough to respond.  It was, after all, important that everyone who attended be included in the memory book.  It was part of the job.

I called.  We talked.  She brought me a photo.  The memory book got printed.  Bobbie was included.  She had a wonderful time at the reunion.

Bobbie, too, is a caretaker.  She's doing it alone, without siblings to support her.  Her mother has memory issues, which I've not had to face with my own mother.  She gets a week of respite each month when her mother "takes a vacation" in a full care facility.  But she is tired.  Understandably so.  She is experiencing some of the same uncharacteristic (for us) behaviors that I'm experiencing.  She blames them on being tired.  I call them depression.  Whatever the cause, it's comforting to know that someone else in similar circumstances is dealing with -- or not dealing with -- similar issues.

Bobbie stopped to see me today at the Queen Emma Summer Palace.  She brought an assortment of consumable gifts -- and a small journal.  "Journaling is important, you know." she told me.  She's right.  We talked.  I showed her how to find our reunion photos on Shutterfly.  We talked some more.   We decided to have lunch some day, and to do the Honolulu Zoo with cameras.  We looked at some of the flowers on the Queen Emma Summer Palace grounds.  We talked more.

I suspect we will become a mini-support group, and friends.

Give thanks for friends, friends you can help, friends who can help you.
Don't forget to pray ....