When I was in Girl Scouts we ended every meeting with a friendship circle and sang “Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” Even back then the words of the song meant so much to me, but a couple of days ago they really rang true.
It had been one of those days at the hospital and I left with a plea to my colleague to keep me posted on a situation we’d been dealing with together. I was no sooner out of the parking lot than I got a text message from her with an update and a question that our head chaplain was going to call me about. (In my defense I must tell you that I didn’t look at the text message until I got to my son’s store and was safely parked!) The question was “Do you know somebody named Bonnie?” Someone named Bonnie had called the office and left a message asking if it was possible to get a message to me. When Mike called the number he gave me had a 512 area code — that would be in the Austin area.
I could only think of one Bonnie from my past life and the last I knew she lived on the East Coast. Driving home later that evening I got to thinking about Bonnie. We had worked together at Wright State University Medical School — a couple of the first employees, if I remember correctly. Bonnie was in the Dean’s Office and I was in the Medical Library. She grew up in Texas and introduced me to “real” Mexican food at a little restaurant in a house near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. When Dick and I made the decision to move to Texas in 1978 Bonnie taught me the correct way to refer to San Antonio:-)
The years passed and I heard from Bonnie not long after Dick died. I don’t remember how she found me then, but it sounded like she’d done it again. And, she was back in Texas. I gave her a call and we had a great time catching up. It seems she had Googled me and found this blog and discovered that I was a chaplain at Parker Adventist so she decided to try calling the hospital to find me. She’s living near Austin and is also active in a small church.
We’ve both gotten a little more silver in the hair department, but it’s good to know that friendship is still golden. And, when my granddaughter Emilie’s Girl Scout troop sings the song at the end of their reinvestiture and rededication ceremony next week I can tell them how true those words are.
A few weeks go someone at church suggested that we get a little choir together to celebrate Pastor Michelle’s first Sunday with us. Eight or ten people stepped up. One of the gals chose four songs for us and we ended up singing two last week and two this week. We’ve got a guitarist and a couple of kids who play trumpet and trombone have played with us. This week Pastor Michelle’s future mother-in-law even joined us.
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