Reminders

I was skiing with friends this Saturday. In between our shushing down the mountain, we sat on the lift and talked about everything…life, death, schools, family relationships and bodily functions.

It was a good day.

My friend Heather recently had to put her black lab down. Gretchen had been part of her life for a very long time. As we stood in the lift line, we watched a couple playing with a chocolate lab and an adorable lab puppy. They were playing with a stick….it was a perfect puppy moment.

“Ugh,” said Heather, “I really want to dislike anyone who has a lab right now.”

“I know,” I said and then it just popped out….”I really want to dislike anyone…..”

And then I stopped myself short….

But my friend Ginger finished my thought, “Anyone who has a child?”

I started to laugh, realizing my brutal honesty, “Yeah, sometimes.”

Ginger and Heather both have young kids. In fact many of my friends have young kids. It would be incomprehensible, lonely and unfair to dislike anyone who has children.

But it felt kind of good to say it.

And it felt even better to have my friends laugh along with me.

We saw Grief standing in the singles line, waiting for us to move over but there was no room; only room for my friends, brutal honesty and the occasional conversation over bodily functions.