Mysterious Friends

When Maurice and Anne were to celebrate their 50th anniversary, we all decided that this event was too good to pass up and that we should attend. Sister Sue decided that she would tell them she couldn't come and then show up and yell surprise. The rest of us had to help her keep the secret, of course. This meant making up stories and lies and keeping them all straight. A day or so before the event we had gone there to help with the setup and food and were having a great time with all the nieces and nephews and the happy couple, of course. At one point there was a phone call, and HW2 happened to mention Mike, which is Sue's husband's name, was there at Mom's. Anne replied, "Mike who?" Thinking very quickly, she told Anne that this Mike was the man that mowed Mom's lawn and that they had become very friendly, and Mom was getting him lunch. Anne swallowed the whole story, and we went on with getting stuff ready. The next day we all gathered for the anniversary party and Sue and Mike got to say surprise, and Anne figured out that HW2 had told her a lie. She was quite taken with how inventive HW2 had been to come up with the story, though.

When Mom had her recent nose bleed problem, she called her neighbor Marge, down the block, and Marge called another neighbor across the street, Tom. Tom is a retired music teacher, and he willingly came up to help mom. When the ambulance took her to the hospital, he followed along in his car and stayed with her till they got the bleeding stopped and answered family calls. Later when she was released, Tom took her home. What wonderful neighbors she has! None of us has ever met Tom or even heard of this good Samaritan until then. We thank him with all our hearts. However, Anne told us that Mom now has two friends that we don't know: Mike, the mysterious lawn mowing guy, and now, Tom. I think that Mom is lucky to have these great, if mysterious, friends.