Excluding family

People enter our lives in so many ways that it's hard to imagine how the most important ones, both connect and remain there.

Excluding family, because family is in your life, whether you like it or not -- for life. You may choose not to see them, or talk to them, or even believe you don't love them, but they are still family and in the grand scheme of things that trumps everything.

One of my oldest friends appeared at my back patio door at six o'clock in the morning bearing cake. Forty three years later she still shows up at my door unexpectedly, bringing gifts and hugs that I will never take for granted.

And Bestest sent me an email about something I wrote. I thought that was strange, but strangely interesting so I wrote back. We kept right on writing until we began talking on the phone, and eventually getting together. That was nearly eight years ago and now we talk on the phone once or twice, or more, almost everyday.

The universe has a unique way of pairing people off. I don't know how it happens, but I do know that I am eternally grateful.