An Unexpected Friend

My husband Ron and I along with our daughter Christy moved to Grand Manan Island 4 years ago. (November 11/2003) It is a super place to live and we plan to stay here for as long as we can. There are however are some draw backs to moving to a small island of 2700 people. It seems that for most anyone that was born here they are related in some way or another to most everyone else. It takes awhile to be accepted, and if you are not born here you are always thought of as from away, no matter how many years you live here. That being said it takes awhile to make friends. It seems most everyone already has all of them friends built in. Slowly, but surely I am making friends.

One such friend is most unexpected. Her name is Joyce and she is 85 years old. I never expected that I would form a close personal friendship with someone some 36 years older than me.( I am friends with a lot of the ladies in our congregation most who are over the age of 75, but I am more on the receiving end of those friendships.) I consider it quite a quite a gift.  It is a friendship that is based on mutual needs. We both need each other. Joyce became a widow in May of 2006. She understandably found her self very lonely, and with a lot of free time on her hands. I started joining her at her home for a cup of tea. We share a mutual love of quilting and this past few months I have reserved most Thursday's to spend the afternoon working on one of my quilt projects .She is pretty much an expert quilter and when the time came for me to finish off a quilt for my daughters wedding she was the first one there to help me. Since then we have also tied 3 other quilts. We are planning to put in one of my tops in the frame in this winter and get that quilted.

It has been a struggle for Joyce as different anniversaries have come and gone ( wedding, death of one her sons, the funeral etc ) and sometimes I have gone to see her just on a day when she was just needing a friend and a hug . She no longer has pets her home but is always happy to give attention to our puppy Snuffy and laughs at his antics.

Joyce is avid gardener, her yard is amazing. Her flower gardens are huge!  You would think it was done by someone less than half her age. One day this summer she sat down and weeded my flower garden. I have back problems and arthritis and she has neither. About a month ago she put in a perennial garden for me that will come up each spring. Today she added 40 daffodil bulbs, a flower I really love.

After she did that I invited her to my office to show her my latest idea for a quilt. I was having a hard time figuring out how to use my EQ6 program. She is not in to computers much at all, but she does know her math, and between the two of us we figured out the block that I wanted. She also volunteered to help me tidy my sewing room. It tends to always look like a tornado went through it. I sorted and she folded. We even managed to get rid of some scraps of fabric. (Like about 3 clothes baskets full and that didn’t even make a dent in what I still have)

Another thing that I appreciate about Joyce is that I can be myself with her, and I know that anything that I share will not be repeated. She has many years of  life experience on her side and nothing much shocks her, and she doesn’t judge. (Ministers wives tend to get judged quite harshly in some circles.) Joyce is a prayer warrior and prays for us on a daily basis. My husband thinks of her as the grandmother that he never had. (She is a couple years younger than his own mother, and she does mother him from time to time.)When he had surgery this fall, she told him that he needed to expect that it would take him a few months to recover. At first he didn’t quite believe her and then he realized she was right on.

Joyce is one blessing that I count twice!