Kindred Spirit Friend

Kindred spirit - Idiom Definition - UsingEnglish.com

The first time Kindred Spirit Friend entered my home, she knew that we needed to know each other better.  Twenty two years ago, she came to help out on a homeschool cooperative effort that our group did every Friday.  We shared skills and talents with the children of our group and it was my turn to do crafts with the 9-11 year old girls.  It was also the day that I had my first appointment with a psychologist to deal with the agoraphobia/anxiety disorder that I had struggled with for nearly ten years.  KSF came willingly.  It was also my 36th birthday.  This was well noted by KSF since this was the date of her own dear mother's birthday.  Upon further discussion of this phenomenon, it was discovered the my Hubby shared the birth date of her own dear father.  See?  Kismet.


In the years to follow, we would enjoy the unfolding of many, many kismetian aspects of our parallel universe lives.

• Our children are nearly the same age.  I had an extra one just for interest.  My youngest was only a year old when we met so she has known KSF all her life.
• We homeschooled our children.  We both have been involved in the pro life movement in a proactive way.  Our husbands worked at the same government installation.
• We are voracious readers; hers more non fiction, helpful knowledge kind of books; me, more entertaining fictional bent.  Independent movies are quoted frequently at our gatherings.
• Our Third Children are crazy funny people.  Nothing was more entertaining than eating lunch while her Third Child read to us from an antiquated sex manual, in a proper British accent.  Much choking from laughter ensued.
• We talk with our hands.  Kinda dangerous if you're nearby.
• When I moved away from her, I received lengthy hand written letters in artfully designed envelopes, some with silly messages on the outside so as to entertain my mailman.  Or maybe scare him off.  Postcards were her speciality.  The more absurd, the better.
• We both think that the other one is the most extraordinary person alive.
• We both had rocky, interesting childhoods and now see the humor/wisdom in them.
• We can call each other with grim news, sobbing and uncontrolled and we know what to say to each other to calm each other down.
• I called KSF first when my mother died.
• She called me when her father had a stroke and I got to the hospital first for her.  We both cared for our invalid fathers at home for a lengthy period of time.
• KSF and her wonderful husband, Boseph, took my mother to a theatre an hour away, in their pick up truck to see 'Much Ado About Nothing', when our local theatres did not carry it.  My mother was not an easy person to take to the movies due to her loud commentary.  But they took on the task and made it memorable.
• KSF, when asking what she could do for me on the occasion of my mother's death, and I responded that she could do the eulogy, and she did so with great love and compassion.
• The first Thanksgiving in our new town, my sons opted to travel to her house to celebrate rather than be reminded that they were the new kids in town on a holiday.  That, and the fact that one of our most fabulous Thanksgivings were held at her house.
• She has designed a stained glass window in my home.  KSF and her Hubby came to my home the first weekend we arrived, to pull up carpeting, fill in paneling, hang anaglypta, paint and now provide poetry written for me in my Renee Busha` Not Yet Memorial Library.  After this past weekend's visit, it appears she still has a vested interest in the RBNYML since she informed me that she has the companion piece fabric to my new living room curtains and has plenty to cover the cushions on my wicker and Busha' Bed (a couch her husband made from the head and foot boards of an old bed of their daughters)  in the library for it's makeover in the fall.  See?  In all the land of fabric, we managed to pick out the same designer.
• She is the artist I wish I was.  I live artistically, vicariously through her.
• We stay on the same side of the fence politically but our religious preference are delightfully different.   We learn from each other through our discussions in our faith beliefs.  I am decidedly Calvinist, while she embraces Arminianism. ( Of or relating to the theology of Jacobus Arminius and his followers, who rejected the Calvinist doctrines of predestination and election and who believed that human free will is compatible with God's sovereignty.)   We have both been involved in Inner City ministry and have learned a great deal in the doing of it.
• We have camped together at a music festival for thousands. 
• We have tended a garden together.
• We love to write; she studied English/Writing in college in her grown up years; I just pretend I did.
• I barely graduated from high school; she dropped out.  We both think that we are pretty much the  smartest people we know.

As our visit this past weekend came to a close, I kept having to ask myself if this could have been real, it was so perfect.  We chatted and sat on the porch and farmer's marketed and lunched at the co operative, we watched the movie Temple Gradin http://www.hbo.com/movies/temple-grandin/index.html from the comfort of my bed.

Since KSF knew me when the agoraphobic disorder that plagued me for years was at it's zenith, we never have traveled together.  Yet.  This weekend, it was decided that if we aren't buying the house together that we looked at Saturday, we really should go on a trip, celebrating her 35th anniversary and my 40th to our teenage sweethearts.

This kind of friendship makes a girl want to be a better person if for nothing else that to make your kindred spirit smile and be proud of knowing you.  It urges you to embrace life and enjoy the sharing of it with someone that 'gets' you.

Thank you KSF for our time together and your long travel to get to me.

I am blessed by knowing you.