"cultivate flowers."

...continued from the previous post, with an update...

On Saturday my adorable gal was my wedding reception date! Matt got to come for just a little while but had to leave to okay soccer. The reception was for my good friend Gurdas. He was married in India to a really fantastic gal! I feel honored to have helped him in the ring-buying process (I'm a professional hand model, don't you know?!) and it was great to be there today!

And then on my way home I thought about how cool it was that I knew him. And not just because he's such a phenomenal person (though he is!) but because of how we became friends. In a grad school class I mentioned that I might like to find some people to work with on homework and whatnot. The professor suggested I stay after class and if anyone was interested to come talk to me. I expected no takers as I was a part time student and everyone seemed to know one another. But this fellow in a turban came to introduce himself to me...and the rest is history :) For some reason something that sticks in my mind about becoming friends with Gurdas is the day that our professor asked a question in class and immediately followed with--"but Carrie and Gurdas can't answer any more questions" because he and I had been answering them all! I loved how we were both so pleased to have been silenced, and how it showed how well we worked together!

Anyway...it just goes to show how friends can be found in the most unexpected of places! And I am so grateful to have celebrated with him today! He and I both became part of a family of three within a few weeks of one another--him by marriage, me by giving birth, and I think that's extra fun too! :)

and then today...I attended a memorial service for a 21 year old, Kyle, who had some physical and mental disabilities. He passed unexpectedly on Thursday. I didn't know him very well, but I remember that every time I saw him he made me smile--he knew my face and my name (which I learned tonight was because he loved to study the church directory) and he was always glad to see people he knew!

During today's service a man got up to speak during the memories-of-Kyle's-life portion of the service. He said he wanted to come up to the front and see everyone's faces--he wanted to see Kyle's flowers. He explained that his granddaddy had taught him that in life you need to cultivate flowers. That you need to have a whole garden.

I can guarantee this image will stick with me for the whole rest of my life.

If you are reading this, there's a very good chance that you are one of my flowers. (and thank you ever so kindly for that!)  My friends are my flowers. Gurdas is one of my flowers. Matt and Cleona are my flowers, too. Jennifer and I talked about this briefly tonight before our amazing six plates date, and said how it's a much better phrase than "collecting people." She and I have realized that unlike many of our other friends, we "collect" people everywhere we go--aka we make new friends (but keep the old) everywhere we go. We don't know why and we don't do it on purpose--we just do. But now we are going to call it collecting flowers. :) And it makes me envision a flowerbed full of lilies and daisies and venus fly traps and pea shoots and basil plants and orchids and cacti and who knows what else. I think I might just have to paint it. If you'd like to request to be a certain type of flower, let me know. :) (Cleona will be a Petunia, just FYI)