“Relations are like electric currents. Wrong connections will give you shocks throughout your life. But the right ones light up your life. ” – unknown

I didn’t realize that I was pulling a loose thread in my life until we landed in France on our recent trip. But I teared up when I was explaining to our friends there that I felt compelled to visit them so that Miss O could know a little bit about what their son’s life was in France. I continued on to say that I believed that it would be easier for their son to come home to start middle school if at least one other friend had seen where he’d been.

Miss O and their older son had been in every class together from ages three through seven when the family moved to France. And then we saw them every summer when they’d come to visit so Mr. D got to know their younger son too.

I didn’t take me long to puzzle out my tears. When my family moved back from the Philippines to the States I was almost seven-years-old. It wasn’t long into trying to make friends at Jefferson Elementary when I heard kids teasingly jeer, “In the Philippines…” I must have started many sentences that way and it got old – for them and for me. Because the two lives were so different.

I didn’t know it was a loose thread all these years later. But I had an inexplicable certainty that I needed to take my family to France to build a bridge for these kids. If my kids could at least see a bit of where these boys had spent four years, perhaps their shift back to school in Seattle could be a bit more integrated.

The parents of these boys told me that one of their sons’ teachers in France counseled them not to talk about their French experience at all with new friends. I understand that advice but also know that we suffer a cramping of spirit when we bottle ourselves up like that.

Then we traveled on from France to our friends in England. Five years ago, this English family moved from London to our street in the States. Our kids went to school together and traveled back and forth between houses in a constant rotation. After four years of life in America it was time for them to move back. They settled into a delightful little village in Southwest England.

We had so much fun visiting our English friends a year after they left Seattle. In one especially poignant moment, I found all the kids huddled around the school yearbook we’d brought for them. The kids were so interested in seeing how everyone looked and hearing stories of what had happened since they’d left. When it was time for us to leave after two nights, there were tears on all sides. The mom of the family told her kids, “See, I told you your American friends would come visit.”

When I heard that, the tears welled up in me again. A feeling overcame me that was similar to when I see stories of long-lost friends reuniting, or blogger friends meeting in person. We are all more connected than we think. And when we honor the threads that bind us, we help complete each other’s tapestries in a beautiful way.

(featured photo from Pexels))

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