Amazing Aaron & Lovable Linda

Things are pretty ho-hum and finally starting to settle down after the excitement from Grandma’s 90th birthday which included seeing long-lost family-friends and a last minute round of speed cleaning.

My favorite part of last week’s activities was being able to visit in-depth with my cousin, Aaron, and his wife, Linda, who live in Michigan with their four children.

Brett and I love Linda and Aaron. They are the kind of friends you constantly wish lived closer. All the time. You may have, on occasion, even prayed for such a thing. If you were us, that is.

I didn’t always like Aaron. For one thing, he was two years older than me. He was ALSO friends with Charity who I didn’t really like at that point in my childhood, either.

I didn’t really even get to know Aaron very well, since his dad packed the whole family up and moved to Watertown, Wisconsin when we were both young kids.

In the intervening years, I could never understand it when my mom would say, “I’m so glad Jan and Darryl have Aaron! Michelle and Michael are such complacent children, and now that they have Aaron, they understand what it is to have a challenge.”

She’d pause a moment, look at me, and say, “Like we do.”

Just what was THAT supposed to me, I used to wonder. After all, I was NOTHING like Aaron.

Every time we visited Watertown, I would see Aaron with a different tall, slender blonde “girlfriend.” Somehow that incensed me. He seemed to perpetuate the Christian-school “player” mentality of a big fish in a small pond.

In retrospect, I may have unfairly transferred a bit of my Christian-school-all-boys-are-chauvinistic-jerks experience onto him.

Just maybe.

I graduated and went off to college, not knowing (or caring) much about Aaron. By this time, Charity and I had become quite good friends. We wrote back forth to each other while I was in college, but rarely talked on the phone. So, I was surprised when she called and asked me if I would fly to Philadelphia to visit Aaron. Aaron was living there while he attended seminary.

“He’s pretty depressed,” she told me. “He doesn’t have any family down there, and he sounds lonely.”

I remember thinking, “Oh what? Is there a shortage of tall, blonde girls he could hang out with?”

But, Charity had her heart set on going, so I relented, and the two of us flew to Philly to see Aaron.

When he saw us at the airport, I noticed an immediate change from the boy I’d known in high school. He was a man now. He was thrilled to see us both, and I think a little flummoxed that we’d flown the distance to see him.

We spent the week at his apartment while he went to school during the day and worked at night. Every hour he wasn’t scheduled or sleeping, he spent with us. We decorated his spartan apartment with products from a nearby IKEA, went grocery shopping for a “deluxe” Italian dinner, and played card games with toilet paper squares.

Before we knew it, the week had flown by. And I had become friends with Aaron. The three of us, young adults now, were finally good friends.

The next few years flew by, and I kept up with Aaron sporadically, through Charity, mostly. Aaron finished seminary and became a pastor. I heard that he had found “the one.” And I prepared myself to meet a “tall, blonde girl” who stole Aaron’s heart.

Boy, was I surprised!

I was introduced to Linda (who is not tall OR blonde but a beautiful redhead) and understood immediately why Aaron was smitten.

Linda is one of those rare people who manage to be a relatable, kind, and good friend who doesn’t drive you crazy with her goodness. Even though you know deep down in your heart that YOU could never be that good, you appreciate all her qualities and the fact that she is your friend, even though you suspect that if you were her, you’d steer clear of you.

If you know what I mean.

It’s sort of an indescribable yet wonderful quality.

The four of us got along almost immediately. Brett and Linda are born listeners. Aaron and I are born talkers. So, Linda and I hit it off, and so did “the guys.”

And now I finally see myself in Aaron.

In fact, sometimes, I feel like if I had been a guy, I would have turned out a great deal like Aaron. We find ourselves saying the same thing, often at the same time, when we are together. And (I suspect) our spouses share knowing glances over our heads when we’re not looking.

Linda has said numerous times that she’s glad to know me, since I “explain” a lot about Aaron. I’ve put to rest her wondering why Rehfeldts constantly interrupt (because we are afraid we are going to forget our comment if we don’t say it RIGHT THEN!) and tend not to listen.

I remember talking to Aaron on the phone once. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “Boy, does Aaron talk a lot. I could hardly say anything.” I commented to my husband as I hung up the phone.

“Really?”

I think he may have said something else just then, but I was too busy talking to notice.

Aaron and Linda have become good friends, not just because we get along and make each other laugh. They’ve also inspired us to godliness with long, thought-provoking talks and discussion.

Linda, especially, has taught me a great deal about how I can be a better person – in life and in Christ. Together, they’ve become kindred spirits to us, flawed as we are, and their friendship has come to mean a great deal to us.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that now when Mom or Aunt Jan say I’m “being like Aaron” –

I take it as a compliment.