Today is Sunday and I wrote an email to an old old friend who lived in our neighborhood in Diablo California. She was considerably younger than i was. I met her when they brought home the baby girl they had adopted. We had a daughter about the same age as their adopted one and we and the two girls became good friends.
A year later we had a new daughter and they had adopted another girl and so as our families grew, our friendship grew. And then they became remarkably rich and they moved into San Francisco and our friendship was kept on hold for a while.
While they were still living in Diablo, our paths crossed in many ways. But the most fun tradition we had was that when the electricity went down, they would bundle up their two little ones and we would have supper in front of our fireplace and we would sit there talking until one baby would fall asleep and then another and suddenly we would have six children sleeping in the bedrooms. And we would continue talking and laughing until it was time to go home and go to bed. Our electricity failed one night after we moved to Laguna Beach and the first thing I could think of doing was to call our friends in Northern California and tell them to come.
This afternoon I wrote a long email to my friend and lo and behold, while I was still on the computer, it dinged and it was my friend. She had had her computer repaired by her grandson and saw my mail sent minutes earlier and she responded. She had been feted by old friends in Diablo on her 85th birthday and as they were sitting reminiscing, her older daughter came in, crying profusely, saying the Stocktons house is gone. It is torn down. When I read that, it struck me. How could that house be gone. Now it will live only in our memories and in our old photo albums. It will happen to all of us and to all our houses eventually and
bless our memories.
5 comments:
It is hard when tangible things fade and become echo's in our past.
I am glad that your friendship still remains strong after all these years :)
Kat
Vancouver, WA
Oh, that is another hard passage. Do you have a picutre of it you could share?
It's sad when old places we loved well are gone. PS. I knew you had to be Stockdon because of Shreve and her father being your son Gilbert. I'm so happy to know you and your granddaughter however tenously by this communication vehicle we call the internet. It has made it easier to know and read things that one never would have imagined. And I love her book too. I just recently finished it.
I would also love to see a photograph of your old home.
I know that I'll have to say goodbye to the home I grew up in one day... I'm not looking forward to it. Your post makes me appreciate my old home even more (thankfully, my mom still lives there so I can, and do, visit often)!
Close, Jodie, but Gilbert is my uncle!
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