Surprise Christmas Encounters
This morning at about 6:00 Hiromi made a sleepy journey downstairs to light the furnace, which has had an annoying habit of going off recently. The furnace is in Joel's bedroom, unoccupied since Joel left for Bangladesh in August. He flipped the light switch and headed toward the furnace when he caught sight of someone in Joel's bed, and a suitcase parked beside it. Why is Shane sleeping here--with his suitcase still unpacked from the Canada trip? He hastily turned off the light, lit the furnace and then checked Shane's room. His bed was occupied also. Still puzzled, he came back upstairs and saw the guest book lying open on the dining room table. The last signature was Andy's. Andy was not here when we had gone to bed, but apparently the boys had invited him home and offered him Joel's bed.
This was the third in a series of unexpected meetings since Christmas Day.
Ted, from Virginia, has spent a number of weeks in our home at various times during the past year and a half, and we have spent the past few Christmases together. "I guess we'll have Christmas without Ted this year," someone had said last week. Then on Christmas Day his father called from Oklahoma where he and his children had driven to a relative's house for Christmas. He had looked at the map and was surprised to see how close he was to our community, so he called my brother-in-law, Marvin, who just moved away from the community in Virginia where they both had lived. The result was that a huge clan of Millers met their family for lunch on Wednesday noon in Yoder. That afternoon Ted came here and stayed till the family left the next morning. So Ted was here after all this Christmas.
On Saturday Hiromi and I went to town together. At the custom framing counter at Hobby Lobby, a woman came up to me and asked, "Are you David L. Miller's daughter?"
"Yes," I answered, "but how would you know that?" I said, madly scrolling through my memory to figure out who this was.
The woman is my first cousin Mary, who grew up in Iowa, married and moved to Ohio, and now lives in northeast Oklahoma. She was in Hutchinson to spend Christmas with her husband's parents, who, unknown to me, live in Hutchinson. When she told me who she was, my memory "mouse" clicked, and I could see my mother's face and that of my aunts, Esther and Fannie (minus the eyeliner and about 20 years). I have vague memories of the time her older sister Edna lived with our family and went to school at East Eureka. I was about three years old at the time.
Her husband, Tony, had spotted us and told his wife, "There's an Amish lady here with a Japanese man."
"That has to be my cousin," she replied (I guess our "weirdness" has made us memorable), and they set off to follow us. I'm glad they did. We visited for a while and caught up a bit on our mutual aunts and uncles, many of whom she has not seen for decades.
Friends and family are a wonderful part of the pleasure of this Christmas season.
This was the third in a series of unexpected meetings since Christmas Day.
Ted, from Virginia, has spent a number of weeks in our home at various times during the past year and a half, and we have spent the past few Christmases together. "I guess we'll have Christmas without Ted this year," someone had said last week. Then on Christmas Day his father called from Oklahoma where he and his children had driven to a relative's house for Christmas. He had looked at the map and was surprised to see how close he was to our community, so he called my brother-in-law, Marvin, who just moved away from the community in Virginia where they both had lived. The result was that a huge clan of Millers met their family for lunch on Wednesday noon in Yoder. That afternoon Ted came here and stayed till the family left the next morning. So Ted was here after all this Christmas.
On Saturday Hiromi and I went to town together. At the custom framing counter at Hobby Lobby, a woman came up to me and asked, "Are you David L. Miller's daughter?"
"Yes," I answered, "but how would you know that?" I said, madly scrolling through my memory to figure out who this was.
The woman is my first cousin Mary, who grew up in Iowa, married and moved to Ohio, and now lives in northeast Oklahoma. She was in Hutchinson to spend Christmas with her husband's parents, who, unknown to me, live in Hutchinson. When she told me who she was, my memory "mouse" clicked, and I could see my mother's face and that of my aunts, Esther and Fannie (minus the eyeliner and about 20 years). I have vague memories of the time her older sister Edna lived with our family and went to school at East Eureka. I was about three years old at the time.
Her husband, Tony, had spotted us and told his wife, "There's an Amish lady here with a Japanese man."
"That has to be my cousin," she replied (I guess our "weirdness" has made us memorable), and they set off to follow us. I'm glad they did. We visited for a while and caught up a bit on our mutual aunts and uncles, many of whom she has not seen for decades.
Friends and family are a wonderful part of the pleasure of this Christmas season.
posted by Mrs. I at
11:00 AM
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