Letter #101 - Dave

I grew up with a very interesting life.  The child of educators, ministers, and a natural hostess... my life has always been full of people.  Making new friends, greeting old friends, hosting families and strangers, being hosted by families and strangers... it's no wonder I don't do well with too much alone time! :o)

When I was four years old, my father became an appointee, which is our church's term for clergy, or full-time minister.  during his 10 month training process, he became friends with his fellow classmates, and all of our families developed a bond that I draw on to this day for strength and support.

Recently, I was reminded of a family vactation where a number of these families rented a place and spent a few days together out in the woods.  I was pretty young, and have relatively few memories of the time there, but I can vividly remember the emotions.  The feeling that I was completely safe with all of these people, and that they all loved me.

Dave was one of the guys on the vacation.  He and his family goofed off with us and hiked through the woods with us and told stories and laughed with us.  Dave has a great laugh.  Even as he has gotten older and become more serious (in part, a product of his latest position in our church), his laughter is something I treasure.  I wrote Dave mostly just to say hi, and to share the memory of that trip with him.  I hope it brings a smile to his face as he recalls some of the  shennanigans that took place that weekend... including the "ceremonial offering" presented to my family in my dad & brother's burned out sneakers...

I may not keep in close touch with Dave, or any of the other people in those families... but we all went through a very intense family experience together, and that has created friendships that have outlasted many things in my life.  These people also provide me with a strength I find I can access just by recalling those times we were all sharing space, and sharing love and laughter.  I will always be an appointee kid, and that makes me a part of a very special family.

Letter #82 - Alexei

When I was in college I worked in the cafeteria in my dorm for a couple of years.  My first semester I met Alexei, a Russian grad student who was also working in the caf.  Alexei and I hit it off almost instantly, and truth be told I had a big crush on him until we discovered he was 10 years older than me and that was just too big a gap at that life stage.  Age and crush aside, we had SO MUCH FUN working together, he has an awesome sense of humour and we would just laugh and laugh through our entire shift whenever we worked together.  We would also try to get our breaks together so we could keep the conversation going.

Before I even finished my time at school Alex and I lost touch.  When I moved off campus and he stopped working at the caf we drifted and lost track of each other.  Until last month.  I received a message in my inbox on Facebook asking if I was the same Rachel from Case Hall Caf... I was floored.  Here was my crazy Russian again, I was so excited to hear from him!  Alex is back in Russia now and I was glad to hear he is doing well and updates on his life.  I asked for his address (snail mail) so I could make him a part of this project and today's mail is carrying off a letter to Russia with greetings, updates and photos!

I look forward to hearing back from him, whether online or via snail mail, I hope the letter arrives alright, he said Russian mail service can be pretty shady sometimes.  In any case it's been very cool reconnecting with such a cool old friend :o)

Letter #60 - Herman

I am so blessed by my family.  I had a wonderful upbringing and so many opportunities that most kids don't get.  I lived the life of an expat and as a result I also got to meet a lot of family and friends I would have otherwise never had the chance to meet.  While I *had* met Oome Herman prior to my family moving to Rotterdam, I wouldn't have gotten to know him nearly as well as we did having lived so much closer.  Hetty & Herman are my dad's aunt and uncle, making them my great-aunt and great-uncle.  And they are truly great.  They took us under their wing from the second we stepped off that plane in Amsterdam, and my life wouldn't be the same without them in it.  Last month I received news that Oome Herman is once again battling cancer.  I was devastated.  In 2008 I had the chance to bring my (then boyfriend) to Europe with me for a two week stay.  During that time we spent a few days in Eindhoven with my dutch family.  Oome Herman was ill then as well, and I really really struggled with seeing him that way.  He wasn't up to leaving the house, which meant we spent way more time with my aunts and cousins, and only saw him a little bit.  It was troubling to me, but at the same time I was so incredibly grateful to be able to sit with him and watch tv and snuggle.  When we left, he promised that the following year he would be coming to visit for our wedding.  I laughed and told him it might be more than a year and he assured me I was wrong.  I wasn't, but it wasn't as far off as I had expected.  Just 2 years later we were getting married, and Herman was too sick to come.  Again I was devastated.  I of course understood but was so sad that he was no longer able to travel, since I don't know when I'll have another chance to see him.

This week I sent him a letter in a card that I hope will make him laugh.  I sent him some photos and a whole lot of love.  He's having surgery this month and I just pray it helps, he's in a lot of pain which bothers me tremendously.  I pray my next trip to the Netherlands won't be for his funeral but for another visit with him.  He makes me laugh so much, I have never laughed until I cried more often than in his presence.  He has so much love in his heart and I miss him so very much.  Those reading this entry, I would appreciate prayers or good thoughts or positive energy... whatever your form of well wishing to him and his wife... that they may get some relief from these struggles.

Letter #54 - Haitham

For someone who didn't get married until the age of 27 (not that I'm so ridiculously old!) I have had an awful lot of marriage proposals in my life.  Not a single one came with a ring (including the one I accepted, come to think of it...!) and most weren't actually serious (many were from boys under the age of 7).  My friend Haitham is responsible for many of those proposals.  For most of them, he wasn't single at the time, so I chalked it up to him trying to make me feel good about myself.  Others I chalked up to him being a hopeless flirt... one of the many things I love about him!  Proposals aside, we developed a wonderful and love filled friendship.  Over the years, Haitham has been much better at keeping in touch with me than I have with him.  When my family returned to the Netherlands in 2006 to visit, he made time to take me out for an evening and catch up (and propose again...).  We are now both happily married (not to each other) and he and his wife are expecting their first child.

I wanted to reconnect with him to share in his excitement and to remind him of how much he means to me, even if I'm not always good at returning his messages.  As I wrote his letter, I was struck by the face that I have no concrete understanding of how he and I became friends in the first place.  We met in high school, he's about 5 years older than me (which in high school is a HUGE age gap), we had no common classes, no real common friends, and yet we hung out at lunch and breaks nearly every day.  We laughed A LOT together, and pondered human behaviour and human relationships.

I dearly wish I had the means to visit him once his baby is born, to meet his wife and child, to watch him glow as a father, to give him a hug and a kiss and to laugh with him again.  Maybe someday that will happen... who knows, by then I may have a family of my own to introduce to his!

Letter #50 - Evan

When my family moved to the Detroit area, I was devastated.  I was coming from an incredible experience living in Rotterdam, I missed Canada, and I was furious that my parents would dare uproot our family to come to a country that I didn't love (settle down all, it's grown on me).  I sobbed the entire 8 hour plane ride from Amsterdam to Detroit... I think the flight attendants were debating whether or not to call in social services on the chance that maybe I was being abducted... when my dad told them I was 14, they gave him a knowing look and walked away.  I was bound and determined to hate Michigan with a fiery passion, and had a plan to make my family pay for making me so miserable.  Then I met Evan like a week after the plane landed.  Damn him.

Evan quickly became one of my closest friends, and helped stave off some of my loneliness.  He would email me, call, we'd hang out sometimes, and saw each other every week at church.  He was my rock.  I don't think he ever realised this.  We stayed close through the next 3 years, including an incredible trip to Tahiti with a church group.  I still can't watch anything with Sean Connery in it without missing him desperately.  We were each others' prom dates, and then when he graduated high school he left me.  We never had a romantic involvement with each other, though sometimes I wonder if we weren't crushing on each other at opposite times.  When Evan moved to Arizona to start college I was sure he'd come back when he was finished with school.  After all, his family was in Detroit, and so was I, and we were such good friends.  He still lives in Arizona.  His family moved away, and here I still am.  He's been back to visit of course, and I've made it down there a couple of times as well to see him.

I don't think I think about how much I miss him normally.  The fact that I'm tearing up a little just writing this speaks to that I guess.  I miss laughing with him, I miss our shared sense of humour, our shared love for laser tag, our shared understanding of the joys and challenges of babysitting Brandon & Cameron... or Brett & Kelsy... or Tim.  I just miss him.  He gives great hugs, thoughtful gifts and even though it's tough to get him to be serious sometimes, I miss his insights on life and people.

Someday when I have an income again, I hope to take another trip to Arizona to spend some time with him.  I hope he knows how much I love him, how much I miss him, and how much his friendship has meant to me over the years... even if I suck at telling him that most of the time.