We returned to a place we called home for more than two decades and — if you’ll pardon the cliche — had the time of our lives reconnecting with some dear friends we continue to miss.
Our visit to Amarillo’s primary mission was to wish our son a happy birthday. We were able to do so. But along the way, as he was working during the day, we caught up with a man who helped pastor us on our faith journey and then visited with a dear friend of my bride and her husband.
Oh, and then — at dinner — we reconnected with another good friend who happens to have become friends with our son.
Not bad … you know?
To be clear, we have many more friends in the Amarillo we were unable to see. Our time back was too brief to visit everyone we know and love. We had to scurry back to our home in Princeton, where treatment for my bride’s medical challenge awaits.
That is what we have done.
This quick-hit trip back to the High Plains, though, will be one for the books.
My wife and her dear friend had lost contact in recent times. They hugged and reminisced about the old days; my wife got her pal caught up on her current medical challenge. As we have heard throughout this trying episode, my bride has found her way onto many prayer lists.
Our pastor friend has been in his current job for 33 years. He is good at what he does, which is that he serves as “outreach” pastor at the church we attended in downtown Amarillo during the time we lived there. He, too, has become a dear friend over that time and we were able to catch up with his bustling family’s activities.
The doctor who insisted that my wife make this trip — even if it would interfere with her cancer treatment — appears to have been spot on … that she would get as much out of this journey from the Metroplex to the High Plains as any treatment she would receive.
He is correct. The reconnection had a restorative value that I will be hard-pressed to define.