Coffee is a Pleasure, Friends are a Treasure

Coffee is a pleasure. Friends are a treasure…Sorry, you mocha lovers…but I don’t like coffee! However, I do treasure my friends!

This past weekend, Doug and I experienced the incredible joy of discovering new friends, including two of the most caring and loving people I have met in a very long time. John and Chris opened their home and not only offered us indescribable hospitality, but a friendship that made me wish I had met them years sooner!

Chris hosts a book club in Kincardine, Ontario where between twelve and sixteen women meet monthly to discuss a book that they have read over the previous month. The group read Come Find Me last year and this past spring they read Then Came a Hush. Being the author of both books, I felt honoured when Doug and I were invited to spend the weekend in Chris and John’s home.

While John entertained Doug with a tour of Kincardine at its Saturday evening summer finest, I enjoyed an incredible four hour discussion with eleven women, whom I now call friends. They talked about, laughed openly and even argued over the characters in my books as though they were real people—even Trickster, the dog came front and centre in their discussions!

In truth, my characters are real…to me! And as scary as it sounds, I’ve talked to them and they’ve responded in kind! Their laughter, their tears, their struggles pull at my heart, and to hear others share similar feelings filled me with such humility and joy that I would be very content to hang up my ‘pen’ and never write another word.

By the time the midnight hour rolled around, I had enlarged my family of ‘friends,’ putting each of their names to memory. My one wish is that the evening could be relived for the benefit of my old friends, only so they could experience what I find very difficult to express.

As I think back on those two days, I am reminded of what Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote: “Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.”

My heart is covered with new footprints and I feel very blessed!