I promise, this is the last blog about how blessed we are with friends...until the next one. Today, however, a different twist. Today, I speak of the children of two of those long-time friends. Understand first, these friends happen to be married, and have two amazing sons. We got to spend time with each of them this week, and as Miss Loosewheel would say, these parental units done good! The boys are polite, caring, gentlemen...as different as they can be in their choices of careers, locations, and goals, but as alike as they can be in their ability to be human beings. The elder is a school teacher (god knows from where that comes?!) in a private school dealing with students who have not been blessed with economic or social benefits! {That may very well be an overt understatement.) And yet, this young man dedicates his time and talents to provide them with structure, with learning, and with love. He hears the siren call of the "everyone can learn philosophy", and proves it on a daily basis. A new father, he sees perpetually the ability to learn, and adapts that to his students.
Then, there is the younger. He is a free spirit, following an inner drive to be his own person. He has been an amazing example of how inner strength can take you to amazing places. Having survived illness, injury, and god-knows-what-else, he has seen parts of the world most people read about and learned amazing things. He is currently involved with being a ship captain, and looks forward to his own "boat". An hour a year is really not enough time to truly catch up with him, but we celebrate each moment we get!
Parenting is a skill I only get to practice mentally. But if I were looking for the "right" way to raise children, the friends we have would be the mentors I would seek! Thanks to them, our friendship has truly become generational! From this we derive smiles and the assurance that when we are in the home, good people will come to visit. Got that, boys?
Enjoy all whose contact changes your lives, and know you are loved!+
And we are all lucky to have BZ and CZ in our circle of friends.
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