Day 124

I am grateful for Tina.

Summer 2003 (I think)

We lived in Central Washington for four years, first moving there when Brett was just a baby. A mutual friend told me to look up Tina and her husband, Mark, when we moved, because they were just simply wonderful people. It wasn't until the end of our first year there that I met Mark and having totally forgotten to look them up, stuttered, "You! It's... it's you!" when we were introduced at a Young Life function.

Tina and I got together shortly after that, and strangely enough, we didn't really get close until after we moved back to this side of the state. We started writing letters, pages and pages each of them and all long hand. I have her beautiful, artsy script in bundles of letters tied up in satin ribbon.

She is a photographer and had her first show last fall. She and her husband run a cattle ranch and raise THE BEST beef I have ever had in my life. Whenever we get together, we just pick right back up where we left off. She lets me be myself. We can discuss opposing opinions without offense. We break into exaggerated Southern accents at random moments. We both had two boys and then a girl, all nearly the same respective ages.

She wasn't excited about the third pregnancy at first, thinking she was done. When I found out I was pregnant less than a month afterward, I sent her a postcard. I drew a surprised face on it and wrote, "Me too!" She knew exactly what it meant.

I love her character and passion. She is honest, real, beautiful, fashionable, generous, and she makes me laugh and think. She calls us clones, as we find something similar happening in our lives that's not happening in anyone else's. I'll take it. I love this girl.

April 2012

Thank You, Lord, for my Tina.