When the Crossing of Paths Becomes an Intertwining

I am a big believer that people come into your life for a reason. There have been several people that have crossed my path and I have known immediately that they came to me for a purpose. I felt it, knew it, and said it aloud. Sometimes they came to remind me that despite the trials and turmoils that I was enduring, I was lovable because they were living proof of it. And sometimes I have known immediately that they came to teach me something about life - to find joy and delight in it, to lead me in a different direction, or just to show up and stand by my side. But there have also been a few people who have come and left and come again. Our paths for some reason began to resemble an intertwining rather than a crossing. With each meeting or crossing our relationship deepened and each of us grew because of it. I have a friend who I met when we were both first married and having our babies. It was the 70s so we were part of a vegetable coop and a cheese coop and we just seemed to pop up in each other's lives - at the park, at church, and eventually at the same school. I wasn't actually part of her inner circle of friends but we definitely knew each other and one another's kids. 

Life goes on and mothers get jobs and you just slowly lose track of people. Our paths crossed again when my job journey brought us together at the same school. The crossing this time was a deeper connection as now we not only had our families in common but came together to talk primary educational curriculum, reading strategies, and the challenges of Catholic education. We were both thinkers more than feelers and even did some teacher trainings together. There was nothing we loved more than picking each other's brains to find new ways around the challenges in early reading instruction. Our relationship now had a more solid feel to it. But once again my professional journey took us in different directions. She headed towards administration and I wanted only to know more about learning. My path moved me along the trajectory of special education and into public education and back out again with a return to Catholic schools. We would encounter each other now and again and with each meeting we remembered how much we enjoyed one another's company. We came to name our friendship the "pair of old shoes" that are familiar and comfortable. You see them in your closet often enough but you're not sure why you don't wear them more frequently because the minute you put them on, you remember how good they feel. That was how our friendship felt - comfortable and easy. 

But life has a way of moving you away from comfort and ease. Your kids get older and go to high school and college; your parents age and become ill and there doesn't seem to be a way to get back to that old pair of comfortable shoes as often as you'd like to. So the intertwining continued as we moved along on our separate paths, coming together whenever possible and enjoying the feeling whenever we did. But then it seemed that a greater power interceded. My friend found her way into the Spiritual Exercises at Santa Clara University, something I had tried to fit into my summer schedule for several years near the end of my career and it just hadn't worked. It became a "someday thing" on my life's agenda. But all it took was my intertwining friend to say, "Tere, you've got to do this," and I was in. It was Covid and I was living in Florida to be near my parents but all obstacles had been removed with the advent of Zoom meetings. Now this friendship became something far beyond anything either of us could have ever imagined. We talked often and long during my Exercises and at the end of it, God led me back to San Jose and suddenly we found ourselves within walking distance of one another. We meet for coffee and walk the labyrinth, we share the latest book we read or tidbits of conversations with our spiritual guides. These conversations help us to grow in our faith and give us a safe place to ask the questions or just admit how long it has taken us to learn to pray or meditate or contemplate. This acquaintanceship that became a professional mentorship that became a comfortable friendship was now a spiritual companionship. The intertwining of these two lives is something for which I will never stop giving thanks. There is no more crossing of these paths. We are walking side by side, hand in hand, companions on the journey.