Silver Lining

It's funny; some of my strongest friendships have developed over the toughest of times.


Two examples for you.


ONE

When my family lived in Germany, my family became friends with another family, the Andersons. My dad taught the Anderson boys in Sunday school, he worked just down the street from the Andersons' house, and often, we'd stop by the Andersons' house on our way home after picking my dad up from work. Living in Germany forces people to create family, because the closest family is half way across the world. The Andersons slowly became our family.

One of my first little buddies was Johnny Anderson. He was 2 1/2 years older than I was. Maybe just 2...I can't remember exactly. We'd play hide-and-seek together...build legos...he was a boy and would treat me like little boys often treat little girls.

 On July 4, 1991, Johnny Anderson died in an awful bike/car accident. He was 8 years old, and he and his brother were riding bikes. The bike Johnny was riding that day happened to have faulty breaks...and was too big for him, I believe. I can't remember all the details. But the ending of this story is, he passed away that day. I soon-after attended my first funeral...my first experience with death was my good friend, Johnny.

 I still remember the day he died. Kayleen and I were playing in a bucket of water on our front steps. After getting tired of playing in our make-shift swimming pool, we went inside, and I saw my dad on the phone, crying. I'd never seen my dad cry before.

Just a little over a month later, my brother was born...August 8, 1991. And a couple weeks after that, my dad had a grand mal seizure in the middle of the night. We were too far out in the German territory for the military hospital to send an ambulance. So you know who came instead? The Andersons. Only one month after losing their son/brother...and the Andersons wrapped their arms around us while we discovered my dad had a malignant brain tumor and he would only have two more years to live.

The fact that such traumatic events took place in their family and my family, in the same year...in the same summer...just a month and a half separating the two, MAJOR bonding. I love that family. Beth, Wayne, Chad, Jeremy, Emiko, Matt, Sarah, Christian and Johnny. They're like a second set of parents and seven more siblings. I'm blessed to have them in my life.


TWO

A couple years after my mom married Chuck, a family in our ward experienced a similar trial to ours. Brother Rex Bliss was diagnosed with cancer...and it was a fast-spreading cancer. We invited him and his family over for Sunday dinner one of the Sundays after his diagnosis...and recognized the pain the family was experiencing...and the pain they were about to face.

After Rex's passing, the Bliss clan quickly became part of our family. We started inviting them over for Sunday dinner every week, and it soon became a weekly ritual. We did everything together...camping, vacations, beach trips...everything. We eventually became known as the "Perry-Bliss-Hanchetts" combining my last name, their last name and Chuck's last name. Once again, we created a family during an extremely difficult time.

The combining of our families lasted for a full year, until Lendie Bliss met and married her second husband and then moved her family to California. Even then, we still kept in touch...me going to EFY in California with Eliot Bliss, and the younger Bliss girls coming to Oregon for Girl's Camp.

Because of the strong bond we made during that first year after Rex's death, the friendships made then are still strong today.

Recently the power went out in my apartment complex, due to a huge unexpected storm in the D.C./Virginia area last Friday. Our power was out for 4 days. Holly Bliss (one of the Bliss girls, who was probably 10 around the time her dad died) and her husband just moved to Virginia a couple weeks ago. On Monday, Holly texted me, telling me she and her husband were taking a day trip to D.C. and wanted to take me out to dinner. When they discovered I was still without power, they insisted on taking me back to their home to spend the night, bought me dinner, let me do a load of laundry and then drove me back to D.C. for work the next morning (an hour and a half away from where they live.)

This experience really REALLY touched me. I realized, that had it not been for Rex's death...and the understanding instilled in my family through the experiences of my dad's death and Chuck's first wife's death, Holly and I probably wouldn't be as close as we are. She's a few years younger than I am, and during childhood years, kids usually don't mingle with kids much younger than their own age. But because our families became inseparable for a year, we became close and are still close today. And oh how thankful I was for that beautiful friendship on Monday night.

Trials suck. They just do. Death is hard and seems horribly unfair at the time it happens...and even several years later it can still seem unfair. And you know what? It is unfair. It's hard, it's rough, it hurts...it's excruciatingly painful.

But, I've discovered that there's usually some sort of beautiful silver lining. It takes years and time to discover the silver lining, but it is there. And I'm so grateful for the chance I've had to recognize it.