A Storm Named Rachael

It was a quiet and calm Friday afternoon until my friend Rachael arrived at the house to help put together snack mixes to give away at Relay for Life later that day. When she walked through the door, it was like a tornado had blown into the house.

Rachael is a loving and giving young woman who becomes personally involved in her friends’ life traumas. She also is a member of a family that seems to have one crisis after another. She gets caught up in all of the drama, and as a person who cares very deeply, she sometimes finds herself frazzled and at her wit’s end. I never had a daughter. but Rachael is the closest thing to one that I have and I love her dearly!

I had a pizza prepared when she and her little girl, Lillie, arrived. We sat down to eat, and the dam broke. Rachael ignored her cell phone's incessant ringing while she talked, and Lillie, finishing her pizza, went out onto the deck to play with Uncle Phil. Rachael filled me in on all of the happenings in her family, in the preschool where she teaches, and in the lives of her friends. After about twenty minutes of venting, she looked at me and asked, “How are you doing?”

I caught my breath from all that I’d heard for the past several minutes. Thankfully, things in my life have been pretty calm lately. “Except for Phil’s mom calling me Alice now, nothing much is going on around here,” I answered her. There have been times during our friendship where the tables have been turned and I’ve unloaded on Rachael, so I was very glad not to have anything to burden her with from my own life. I caught her up on Mom’s condition at the nursing home, and how she is doing o.k., but slipping mentally and losing weight. Being called Alice is pretty mild compared to the stuff Rachael has dealt with the past few weeks. I also gave her a quick update on Wade and Brian, giving her the Cliff Notes version of their lives to-date.

“I need to come over more often,” she sighed as she settled down in her chair and began to relax. I agreed. There is something about our house that is calming to Rachael, and it is a kind of sanctuary for her. I do my best to make our home welcoming and comfortable for all who visit, but for Rachael there is something special about coming over to spend some time with me. I treasure my time with her, even when the intensity gets to the Level 4 hurricane ranking. My house seems to be a good place to ride out the storms, and the calm afterward is sweet and serene.

We finished our pizza, and got to work on the snack bags. The storm was over, and the sun was shining again.