Well, the Primary Election is behind us and it was great working
and seeing so many in the community come and exercise their right to cast their
votes. Your voice and every vote always
matters. The last hours of Election Day
with long lines and standing room only were encouraging and I only wish that
the days of Early Voting had seen such numbers.
Since I am not out in the Wylie community working any
longer, this gave me the opportunity to see many friends and acquaintances that
I had not seen in awhile. As I visited
with Pete and Sue Nicklas, I shared that I had known Sue longer than anyone in
Wylie. At that revelation, Sue quickly
said, “That’s because there is no one older than me in Wylie”. Of course everyone knows that is not
true. Sue is not only “young” in body
and soul, but also in her spirit. When I
was first around Sue, I was two years old and she and my cousin Manya were
school girls. Sue and I “shared” our
cousin Manya, so I guess we are “cousins-in-law” if there is such a term. We were each perched on a limb of our family
tree—not just on different limbs, but on different trees respectively. My Bootsie (Manya’s mother) was Daddy’s
cousin and she kept me during the days from the time I was two until I started school. Manya and Sue were not only cousins on her
dad’s side of the family, but they were best friends too. As a little girl, I
suffered from “hero” worship as I adored Manya and Sue and I am sure I was not
really a welcome ‘Musketeer’ in their BFF equation. However, I never remember them making me feel
unwanted when they were together.
Now what is funny about this is when Sue first connected the
dots of the little curly haired shadow of her past to the woman of today and
how I fit into her life too. Sue’s last
memory of me as one of the Musketeers was at Manya’s wedding. We played ‘Maid of Honor’ and ‘Flower Girl’
to Manya the Bride. And when Sue married
Pete, he swept her off her feet to California
where they lived for years. It was
sometime in the 1990’s at a “Kay John’s Prayer Conference” that I first saw Sue
again. And then when Dwight and I joined
First Baptist Wylie in 2003, our lives once again crossed.
It was probably four years later, before the dots were
connected for Sue. It was the night of the
celebration of Manya and Dennis’ 50th Wedding Anniversary. There was a huge crowd and we were all
visiting and reminiscing over the times and looking through the story of their
life together in the pictures of their five children and the grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. They had the home
movie playing that captured the moments of the wedding and all of us in the
wedding party. As we sat having dinner,
we watched the wedding procession and those in the wedding were asked to stand
up and we were introduced to everyone that night. When Manya introduced me, that was Sue’s “moment
of revelation”--I was the same little curly haired girl that she had known from
years ago and yet she had NOT known me except for who I am today. And she did not know that who I am today is in
part who she and Manya were to me all those years ago. In my “hero worship” what I liked about them,
I tried to emulate.
A couple of years ago, Dwight and I were regularly going to
Pete and Sue’s for Bible Study. At that
time, Dwight picked up mannerisms and little nuances that Sue and I share. Yet they are not NEW,
they go back for years, to the past of a tiny little girl wanting to be like
the two “older” girls that she adored. I
am glad that I picked them and My Bootsie (she is now home with the Lord) as role
models for all three proved to be incredible women that have mentored to many
throughout their lives. I pray that the
Lord will continue to bless them and use them in their fruit bearing ways of
mentoring to all the children in their lives—known and unknown, for we never
know who is watching, listening and emulating us. And may this be food for thought to us all...let
our ways be pleasing to Him so that those that should be following us are also
pleasing Him in their walk.
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