Today our neighbors, the Bracken’s, moved. It’s a little devastating. Kenlee Bracken is Nataleigh’s BFF. They lived just two doors down from us
and they play together all the time.
When we moved here and learned that there was a girl close to
Nataleigh’s age, we really felt like it was an answer to prayers.
Kenlee is like one of the family. I remember a Saturday or two when she would come to play and
we were in the middle of family chores.
She’d jump right in and help like she was a Rasmussen. The girls would eat dinner together,
run errands together, carpool to dance and gymnastics twice a week together,
swim, play, pretend, and make up dances all day long.
Nataleigh learned a lot about friendship and what it means to be a good friend from Kenlee.
We will miss her every morning when its time to walk to carpool for school. We will them every time we walk by their vacant house.
We will also miss Jeff, Denise, and their darling girls
Bre, Kirstie, and Bailey. Even
in the short time we’ve been here we’ve seen them marry, have babies, start
jobs, make it on the high school dance team, and have a first kiss. They are maturing into lovely ladies.
Denise has been a great friend to me. She really helped me adjust to our new
surroundings. She is fun, creative, full of
wisdom, and fabulously fashionable. We’ve spent many hours talking about
raising children, families, and how to overcome obstacles. I am really going to miss her and her
sound advice.
Watching the Brackens move brought back so many memoires of
our move, but is very different from this vantage point. I felt so helpless! I wanted to say, “STOP. Don’t move!”, but
there was nothing I could do to stop them. My rational knows that moving was the right thing for them. That doesn’t help this strange feeling of
being left behind.
While the Brackens were very much in the “launch mode” busy
with boxing up the house, all I could do was fold a box or two and wish them
well. It reminded me that
sometimes the harder role is that of the one left behind. It made me think of all the wonderful
people we left behind in Fruit Heights.
We keep in our heart special memories and hope to maintain important friendships.
Still, saying good-bye is hard.
