365 Grateful: Phone, Mail, Computer, Website, People

You’ll have to allow me to be sappy today, readers-mine.  I have a lot to be grateful for today and all of it has to do with two people: Thumper and her hubby to be, Chris.  I make a point not to use people’s real names on here, but I will explain why I call that beautiful blonde “Thumper.”  Thumper is my best friend and sister from another mister.  When we were little, we spent every waking moment together.  We’re talking my poor mother did Mommy & Me classes with my brother and Thumper hanging onto her for dear life and me running off to explore everything.  The two of us sobbed for half a day when “Brudder” went to preschool and then launched ourselves at him when we went to pick him up (much to the preschool teacher’s amusement and confusion…she told my mother that her “children were weird”).  As we got older, we got very into Disney and Warner Brothers.  I became Oliver, she became Thumper, and my brother became Bugs Bunny.  She’s had many nicknames from me over the years, but our cartoon names have always stuck.  We use them when we’re feeling sappy, when we’re giving each other a hard time, when one or the other of us needs an encouraging word.  We’ve seen each other through heartbreaks, drama, serious life problems, and brilliant fun.  Even though we’ve lived and traveled all over the world, we sometimes have to go as long as two or three years without seeing each other face to face, and our schedules are so screwy that we have played phone tag for over two months more than once, she is so much a part of my life that she is part of my heart and soul.  I have known her for 30 years as of this last December, so you can imagine my joy when I found out she got engaged on my 30th birthday to her fiance, Chris (who I met a couple of weeks later and totally approve of).

I’m grateful for my phone because it allows me to talk to her and hear sentences like: “I bought my dress” and “You should have something in the mail.”  It lets me hear the voice of a friend/family member who is so far away.  I’m grateful for the mail, because it brought me her save the date card.  This card had the website on it.  The website had the pictures above on it.  My computer allowed me to see the site and make the little collage up top.

Really though, I’m grateful for 30 years of love, friendship, and sisterhood with Thumper.  I’m grateful to Chris (whose name is so common I’m not worried about using it on the site), who makes my Thumper happy, content, and relaxed.  I’m grateful that they have found each other and that their love is so obvious that you see it in person when they’re together and even in pictures.  I’m grateful for the person I love, the person she loves and I have grown to like over the years, and all the technology that has allowed us to keep our bonds strong and growing.