Dinner with Friends

My friends and I had our annual birthday dinner. My birthday is the end of Nov., Merrell's next Sat., and Chris' is near the end of the month. Judy is included but excluded. Her birthday isn't even close to ours, but we let her tag along.
It was a good time. We talked a lot. I brought grilled chicken salad. We talked a lot. Chris brought junk food. We talked a lot.
Oooppss!!! I just realized that we forgot to sing Happy Birthday. But we ate the cake; it was oreo cake. We also talked a lot.
Merrell and Judy were our hostesses. Chris gave me a beautiful wreath to hang on my front door. She made it herself. Know what she gave me for Christmas? She gave me another beautiful handmade wreath. I have two side-by-side front doors. Don't forget; we talked a lot.
And I gave Chris something that I've wanted to give her since September. Between talking a lot, I explained to her that I entered a poetry contest. The poem I entered was about her and our relationship. Our relationship involves a lot of talking--a lot! But I won first prize with that poem! I've been waiting for the moment to give her the poetry book. I explained that she was the inspiration and well.......the poem explains it better.

Missing Chris

Happy is he who find a friend and he who speaks to attentive ears. Sirach 25:9

My soul mate, Chris would help with my mess,

over spinach artichoke dip, nachos,

ice tea, girl-talk, dope slaps, and laughter;

deftly would your perspective fix my problem;

snap smooth wrinkled excuses and cobwebbed thoughts,

as we share late night secrets and pray for grace.

__________________________________

Before I went to the birthday dinner, I was at Chapter. One of my brothers, out of the blue, asked me who Chris was in my poem, that won first prize. I was very surprised! That poetry book has been hanging around since September. What made him read it now? What made him pick out that poem? What made him ask "Who's Chris in your poem?" So I explained that Chris and I were on parallel faith journeys and use to "talk a lot" together, and I mean "talk a lot." We had fallen in love with Jesus, somehow. We're both cradle Catholics but in 2000 the Holy Spirit dope slapped us in a Life in the Spirit Seminar that our prayer group conducted. We were born in the Holy Spirit. All we could talk about was Jesus. All we could think about was Jesus. All we wanted to do was do things involved with talking and thinking about Jesus. We became very close friends with the spiritual director of the prayer group--Our Lady of Hope Charismatic Prayer Group. He, Father Aniello Salicone, Chris and I would go out to eat, after prayer group. We talked a lot. We talked and talked so long that the restaurants would ask us to leave. We'd stay and the employees would be cleaning up and there we were talking, talking, and talking.

That's what the poem is about. That's the story I told my brother. For some reason, my little story about our friendship touched him. My brother told me that he was going to relate my story to his support group, read my poem, and ask for prayers for Chris and for everyone to have one good friend.

Did I mention that we talked a lot?