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Life is made of memories and it’s amazing how two people can have different memories about an occasion.
My mother and I were visiting her friend, Joan recently. At breakfast one morning, I asked them to recollect how they became friends. They both mentioned that it was during a visit to Barbados nearly 34 years ago when Joan was pregnant with her son Christian. They met in a store and heard each other’s accents and inquired if the other was from Guyana. The affirmative answer led Joan to invite Mom to her home (in Barbados) to meet her family and to share Guyanese dishes. As they talked, breakfast was over and dishes were washed and put away but the argument continued regarding how and why the friendship developed and has lasted more than 3 decades. Each person relayed a memory that cemented the friendship, and listening to them, I deduced that their perceptions were different, but both were very involved in creating and maintaining a friendship that allowed them to communicate from the West Indies to the United States on a frequent basis since 1998.
Prior to preparing the meal for dinner that night, Joan asked Mom’s advice regarding how she made her seasoned rice. Intermingling their expertise on a dish they have made numerous times on their own over the years, the product was noticeably different. When Christian came to visit his mother that afternoon, Joan invited him to dinner. The food was blessed and, after tasting, he commented that my mother had made the seasoned rice because it tasted different from his mother’s. I tasted the rice and immediately told Christian that the combination of both cooks made a better dish because it did not taste exactly like my mother’s rice.
On that day, we recollected memories and made new, unforgettable ones over the sharing of meals.
For everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
-1 Timothy 4:4-5
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