"Friends are Where You Find Them"

I know I am very behind in posting...I have updated baby room photos, updated photos of my new living room & kitchen ceilings, the new lights, big changes in my house...so I swear it's all coming, but it's been so busy lately so as soon as I have a little time, I will update this blog a bit more! (OH and I still need to post pictures of the WONDERFUL gifts from my amazing secret pal! But I will save that for another post!)

This is something I found recently and wanted to post because I just thought it was so wonderful. I am very lucky to have one fantastic Grandma (and Grandpa!) still living in Vermont. My other Grandmother passed away a few years ago, but she and I were avid writers while I was in college & when I first moved to Oregon. Consequently I have a big box of her letters from over the years. In college we would have letters back and forth to each other nearly as often as every 2 weeks. I barely remember anything I wrote to her, but I religiously saved every single letter of hers. I do recall that I was forever apologizing for the paper on which my letters were written, since I was in college and it was normally a piece of spiral notebook paper. One day she wrote me this letter- it started "I don't mind the paper you write on! Use an old shoe if you can get it in the mailbox!" So for her birthday that year, I took an old shoe, stuffed it & painted it white & made it quite solid, and wrote a letter on it. I photocopied the letter where she had written "write on an old shoe" and put it in the shoe. She had a good laugh about it! She kept it, and when she passed away a few years ago, the shoe came back to me, along with the photocopy of the letter. I can't bear to part with it because in addition to the sillyness of the shoe, once I read the rest of the letter, I remembered the day I received it and reading it for the first time, and thinking it was the most valuble advice I have received, perhaps in my lifetime. Here is the rest of that first page:

March 30, 1994
Dear Kelli,
You say you hate to leave your friends; as you grow older you will find friends are where you find them- There are a lot of great people in the world- if you are a friendly person you'll find people everywhere! I've enjoyed wonderful connections & contacts with people I never see after 2 or 3 times, its a good feeling to know there are people with the same interests in the world! You can never tell when you may run into someone special. It sure keeps life interesting!

So I am echoing Sharon's post on her blog about "it takes a Village". I am amazed at this entire adoption community that has seemed to just "sprout up" around me once I started this process! When I first started to make the decision about whether to adopt on my own or not, the advice I heard from several people was "develop a good support network." But no one really could explain how that happens...and I now I know why! It just happens because it happens....like My Grandmother said- 'friends are where you find them.' Sometimes they just "happen," and I feel so incredibly lucky to have found this amazing group of strong independent women to learn from & to share the journey with!