So no post about the Poteet farmhouse, and what it means to me and my kids, can start without my great-grandfather’s idea about the house. My grandparents had longed to be farmers, and had been searching for a spot for a while. They found this land, about 162 acres (my dad is GUARANTEED to be mad I got the number wrong, but I can never remember the exact acreage!), with a house on it, and bought it back in 1945. This was Erwin and Willa Mae Preston, with one son (Erwin, Jr.) already born and my dad coming a year later. Willa Mae’s dad came to visit, and took a good look around the house. He said, with a sense of humor that my dad inherited down to the delivery, “Nothing wrong with this house, Willa, that a couple of sticks of dynamite couldn’t fix. Throw them into the fireplace, get the stone out of the house, and start over. Then you’ll have a nice home.”

They didn’t do that, and the iron above the door spelling out the builder’s name, a Mr. Sherman, is still there from the late 1800s. My grandparents raised my dad and his brother there, and then moved to the big city of Poteet (“the big shitty,” in my Papaw’s parlance). In my childhood, we visited them in their house in Poteet, just under the strawberry water tower, and only went to the farm to indulgence my dad’s nostalgia. Every time he dragged us out there, he had to debate if he wanted to see his lifelong home or listen to us four girls whine more.

Still, Anna, Carol, Jennei and I had some good times there (specifically driving the ‘tractor’ and the ‘bomb’ car out on the farm …). As a child, I was more connected to my Granny’s house in Pleasanton, but it was sold after her death. In her later years, when I was in college, Mamaw moved to Houston. With both of them gone, and then my move to DC, I didn’t find much reason to go to Poteet, though I still talked about it often.

After I met Jason, I felt compelled, on our very first trip to Houston, to drag him to Poteet to see the farm with Dad and Nancy. As Nancy and I watched in the ‘shade’ of the unairconditioned house, Dad and Jason pulled armpit high weeds in the boiling hot Texas sun, and then we stayed in the old house overnight. Jason left without a really strong positive impression of Poteet.

I however, began to feel more and more nostalgic, and started pressuring my Dad and Nancy to build a new house, or fix up the old one, so we could have a connection in Texas. Inspired (or harangued), dad decided to build a house on the Poteet land next to the house he was raised in. He sold a house he owned in Houston; an architect from his church volunteered to draw up the plans; and the process was begun.

Papaw and Eleanor when we were living there this summer.

The longer I’ve been away from Texas (almost 20 years, now), the more I cling to memories of Poteet and Pleasanton growing up, and the more I want to offer my children some of those rural, running around crazy memories. Dad and Nancy, and their investment in building and maintaining this new farmhouse — not to mention helping us with our tickets to fly there every.single.time — have provided that opportunity.

Ever since Allyson was wee (less than 1) and Oliver was just slightly less wee, we’ve been going to Poteet. At first, it was just to look at the foundation and let the kids play in the piles of sawdust. Then it was to set up the house, buying dishes and beds and artwork. And then, in a very unexpected twist last year, it became a temporary home for our family as we decided where we would go after a short sojourn in New York City ended quite ignominiously.

Driving up with our trusty Honda and enormous moving van to our home-away-from-home in Poteet provided us with all the welcome that we needed. The kids — even baby Eleanor — start to unbuckle their seat belts as soon as we turn onto the land, and Oliver knows how to unlock the gate. We round the bend, and the new farmhouse and old farmhouse come into view, framed in glorious Texas light.

Oliver and Allyson, watering Dad’s beloved oak trees that he grew from ACORNS that he gathered down by the creek.

Dad and Nancy, and Mamaw and Papaw before them, were incredibly generous to create this home for us, this place, this land that we can walk as heroes, even when we feel quite downtrodden by life. That first breath of air, that first Shiner Bock on the front porch of the old house, that first glimpse of our boots waiting on the fireplace for us to return … this is our home, no matter how far we roam. And I am incredibly grateful to my Dad and Nancy for investing in it for us.

We aren’t living there now, but you will find us there for large chunks of time every year: breathing in the air, complaining about the ‘neighbors’ and checking out Poteet’s barbecue and breakfast tacos every six months or so. Thanks, Dad and Nancy, for the love and the safety we always find in Poteet.

Five months after Oliver was born, in August, my best friend Pam was expecting her second child. About a week before her due date, her husband came down with pneumonia. Pam called and asked if I would be her partner for the birth if it happened while Chris was sick — they don’t even let people with pneumonia near a birth ward, much less in it. I agreed, and I think we were both sure it wouldn’t be necessary.

Pam and I are dear friends, have been for decades, and we both value our privacy. We don’t end conversations with love (until recently), we avert our eyes when dressing together, and we don’t pry too much. So when the phone rang at 2 a.m. one night, just after we talked, I knew what it was about, and I was worried and excited. I was glad to be able to support Pam during her time in need, worried that she would miss Chris so much that I wouldn’t be much help, and also worried about being away from Oliver for so long (he was about 5 months old — still lots of nursing). I packed a lot of bottles and a pump and drove my visiting mother-in-law’s stick shift Miata to Baltimore. I met Pam in the emergency room, where she was tiredly waiting.

Pam with baby Samantha and me with baby Oliver a few weeks after Sam’s exciting birth.

I think both of our guards were down more than usual — it was the middle of the night, we were both way away from our comfort zones, and we were both worried about what would happen next. We started talking, checking in with how she was doing, and tracking her progress. The pain was intense but not regular, and they admitted her soon after and gave her a birthing room. Having just given birth months earlier, I was filled with advice but also aware of how little what you ‘think’ is going to happen is what actually happens. I tried to spend a lot of time listening.

Neither of us are big huggers, so I didn’t rub her back or hold her hand. We talked, a lot, and wondered what was happening with her son and husband at home. We wondered if her baby would be a boy or a girl, and if her parents would arrive before the birth (yes, just!). We breathed. We passed the time, together.

I was aware that the precious gift of Pam’s trust and time at this very private time came at the expense of her ill husband, and was grateful and yet wished he could be well. We called him often. As the hours passed, the pain became more intense, and the silences lingered. I was hoping she’d be okay, and she was, too, and we were both preoccupied with the baby to come.

I left to pump a couple of times; the hospital had a nursing room.

A few hours later, just after her beloved parents arrived from Kansas, Pam’s pain began in earnest. She had an epidural (I think?) but the pain was intense, and the pushing wasn’t helping. I could tell it was getting really close, and called Chris on the cell phone. Hearing his voice cheering her on made her cry, really cry, and push harder. He knew she could do it; we all did.

Watching Pam in pain, trying so hard and willing her body forward, was in some ways harder than when I had given birth. Seeing a dear friend in pain, and being unable to alleviate that pain, was a truly complicated experience. While I urged my husband not to say, “you’re right, it is harder to watch than to give birth,” I genuinely felt that a little bit during Pam’s labor.

Finally, after hours of labor, out came sweet baby Samantha, a girl. Pam’s relief was palpable, Chris was overjoyed, and they were both relieved: They had only chosen a name for a girl. Merrily and Lee (Pam’s parents) were overcome with joy.

I left soon after, gathering my many bottles of milk to return to my own (enormous by comparison) baby. But that day, in that room, being witness to one of the most private, powerful and transformational events in a person’s life — not just being witness, but assisting in, being needed in, was a huge gift to me. It showed me how much Pam trusted me, and taught me how much I could trust her in return. It made me prize her strength, and prize my own when I gave birth again. And, it made me finally allow someone other than Jason into my birthing rooms, and both Pam and Julie were witnesses when Eleanor was born, just over three years later.

Trust, whether that means trusting the world with endless thank you notes  or trusting your best friend with your time of need, is a life lesson I learn again and again, and often my lessons take place with my dear friend Pam. Thanks, Pam, for sharing the beauty of Sam’s birth with me.

So Eve Koopmann and I had a third twin (it’s complicated) in elementary school, Carol Hoffman. Actually, she was more our leader than our twin. Eve and I were both shockingly tall, remarkably early, and gangly. Carol was strong, athletic, and short. She was also a natural leader, with a willingness to organize and a strong, powerful voice.

Two memories that I’m thankful for: After Carol’s mom, Nancy, and my dad decided to get married, and we were yet blissfully unaware of the many complicated years that decision would create, we gleefully marched to our shared. We sat in a circle, as 1st and second graders did at Dodson Montessori school, and went around the room with news as we did every day. The time came for Carol to speak. She looked at me. We both burst out at the same time: We’re going to be SISTERS! For that glorious day, and perhaps a few others, we were the envy of the whole class. Friends, and now sisters: Who knew what could happen next!

A few years later. We’re well established now, and Carol and Eve’s neighborhood (oh I was so envious — not only did many of our school friends live there — right next to school! — but now my dad lived there, too!) was the nexus of after school ‘fun.’ I put fun in quotes because we are all right in the thrall of boy-girl love tension, as only 10 and 11 year olds can do, and we played that out by … fighting. We each had our boyfriends and wish-we-could-have boyfriends (Jon-Paul Estrada, Eliot, and I forget Carol’s man-of-the-hour), and we would meet on the corner of Harvest and Fiesta Streets after the school bus dropped us off.

It was a fight to the … I don’t know what, but it was a ferocious fight. And Carol was our leader. She would tell me and Eve (and the others gathered) what to do, and we would set out with clear instructions for our love/enemy. I usually wimped out before any blood got shed, but I remember one day with startling clarity — Eve being actually swung around by her long, glorious brown hair, and Carol jumping in with ferocity to stop the carnage and claim a win for the girls.

I’m not sure we won (I’m still amazed we survived relatively unharmed) but I remember envying and admiring Carol’s fearlessness and bravery in defending Eve.

Me, Eve and Carol with baby Maggie in Palestine, Texas.

The baby in this pic, Carol’s first, is now older than we were in those neighborhood fights, and I know Carol has fought for her, her three other children, and her life in Palestine, Texas as hard as she ever fought in elementary school. She leads me still. Thanks for your strength and your courage, sister.

So, first love is a freighted conversation — is my first love Eliot, from fourth grade? Kevin Mills from 9th grade? Or the unrequited kind of Timmy Lewis in fifth grade and Clint Walker in middle school? When I think of my first love, the most poignant one, I think of Buck.

He was a Pleasanton kid, a friend of my cousin Amy. We met one night at the high school football field, a night that ended in a very long ride in an ambulance from Pleasanton, Texas to San Antonio. We were just playing around, holding hands and spinning fast in a big group of kids, when my head made some pretty fast contact with another kid’s knee.

We went home, Amy making sure I got to Granny’s okay, and then in the middle of the night I started vomiting. THREE other concussions (details to come) were bike related, but this one was just youthful stupidity. I was fine — the slo-mo ambulance ride was actually kind of fun, with my mom’s full attention and the bright lights spinning around.

So, back to Buck. I guess we made a strong connection that night, and this was BACK IN THE DAY, so he wrote me a much-wanted letter. And, best of all, I still remember it, he put cologne on the letter. It was blue stationary, with black writing, and the words were not memorable. But the scent — I bet I could still pick it out in a lineup of (cheap, young man) colognes.

It was so … appealing. Sexy, really, before I was really sure what that word meant. I felt so desired, and it was such a different feeling than with my boy friends at home (almost all of whom I was about a foot taller than). I wrote him back, he wrote me again, we wrote each other at least three times. He was older than me, by a year or two — this impressed me enormously.

Eventually we realized I wouldn’t be back in Pleasanton for some time, and the words tapered off.

A few years later, when I was in late high school or college, Buck committed suicide.

I don’t know his life story, or what demons he was dealing with, but I do know that his cologne-scented letters meant a lot to me then — and still do. I wish he were still around for me to tell him thank you.

My parents were raised in very, very small town Texas — my mom in Pleasanton, Texas and my dad in Poteet, Texas. They moved to Japan after college, to fulfill my dad’s ROTC debt to the Navy, and then lived briefly in Coquille, Oregon. By 1976, they had returned to Texas, and settled in Houston.

My first memories are of Houston, the flooded streets that we played in like swimming pools, the incredibly rare snowfall being treated as a miracle, the sunny gloriousness of the almost-endless summers. Best of all, for me, were the trips to Pleasanton. We’ll return to those again and again in this year of gratitude, but for today I want to focus on the cousin I played with the most: Amy Mills.

Her dad, my mom’s brother, was probably the scariest person in my childhood. He was strict, tough, and not given to speaking with children. But even the fear of him couldn’t keep me away from their house, where Amy and I would play make-believe for hours and hours (though I confess I went over more during the day, when he was working in San Antonio …).

A gaggle of cousins around 1986. Please note how VERY VERY sophisticated Jennei and I were pretending to be (well, Jennei actually was). Also pictured: Amy Mills holding Andrew Cullen, Benjamin Cullen (front) and Michael Mills (back).

We wedded our dolls to each other. We played hide and seek. We snuck off to the nearby high school, and had picnics on the grounds. And I could trust Amy with any question, no matter how  awkward or weird. She didn’t judge me.

So many memories flood me when I think of Amy and my childhood. In my memory, we are almost completely free from adults, when we were together. My grandmother gave us space to roam, and my parents and her parents trusted that we wouldn’t get into too much trouble in small town Texas.

Sitting under the enormous oak tree at the Pleasanton High School, talking about boys.

Opening Christmas gifts together in an orgy of greed, screaming at the awesomeness of the gifts.

Lying in bed, late at night as tweens (we didn’t know the term then), talking about what on EARTH the words in granny’s romance novels meant.

Visiting her at her job at the IMAX theater in San Antonio, and getting free tickets.

Playing on the football fields with her friends from Pleasanton, feeling both included and able to be freer because I wouldn’t see them again (soon).

Amy was a daring, bold person in my childhood, a leader who included me and took me places I’d be too afraid to go on my own. Looking back I realize how
I often put myself above her, in my mind, as I was a sophisticated city kid and she was a small-town girl, but it is amazing how wrong I was. Her sophistication and openness to who I became throughout my life has been an amazing model in my family and in my life. I’m lucky to have a cousin like her. Thanks, Amy.

When I encourage my staff to come in and ask for help prioritizing projects, I am emulating Rich White. When I ask staff to take time for their families and their lives outside of work, I am honoring Rich White. When I see a dreamcatcher and smile with remembrance, I am thinking of the joy that Rich White found in the southwest.

Rich hired me in August of 1999, soon after two organizations had merged. I was a new Director of Communications, and I came in full of confidence and certain I had all the answers. Rich built up that belief in me, while gently transforming how I worked. I’m still not sure how he managed to be so strongly encouraging and completely reforming at the same time.

We went to the beach later that day, and relished the sun.

One day, a year or so into our working together, we went to San Diego for a meeting. His (then brand new!) wife Nancy joined us later in the trip (and we went to the San Diego Zoo together!), but at first it was just us. This was one of my first work trips, and I was desperate to both impress Rich and the AAIA board/communications team, and also to see San Diego.

We carefully laid out our schedule so we accomplished work, tasted excellent Mexican food, and saw the ocean. Rich and I edited the magazine together late one night because I told him that I really wanted to see the ocean the next morning. He begged off, so I woke up at 5 a.m. myself and drove the rental (a red Monte Carlo SS, I will never forget) to the ocean.

The sun, just to clarify, is SETTING here, which is does in the west.

I stood there at the water’s edge, thinking about:

• how lucky I was to work for Rich, and be able to travel the U.S. in ways I never had before.
• how amazing the trip was going, and how glad I was about the new magazine
• why on earth wasn’t the sun coming up? It was getting lighter and lighter, and yet the ocean was still just a stunning, unchanging, mild blue color.

With sudden insight, I turned around. The sun rises, for those of you paying attention at home, in the east. While I had always previously been to beaches in Texas and the East Coast that featured a sunrise, I had somehow come to believe that ocean = sunrise.

Looking at the sun rising over the mountains behind me took my breath away. What a basic assumption I’d made, and how wrong I had been! When I sheepishly made my way back to the hotel and confessed to Rich, he didn’t even laugh. He is such a kind man, so gentle, that he just said he hoped it was still a good morning.

Hard at work, editing together.

We traveled together a lot those three years we worked together, and saw a lot of amazing parts of the country. That trip, with Nancy and Rich, meeting people who would be in my life for decades to come, was a highlight. And Rich’s kind, gentle ways are a lesson to me still today. Nancy and I still work together occasionally, and I always ask her to tell Rich what a beacon he has always been to me — and here I am telling him myself.

Thanks, Rich. Your priorities were always right on.

My sister, two years and one month older than me, was my leader for much of my childhood. I remember with a sad pang the day in middle school — I remember it precisely — that I was standing behind her in her closet, trying to borrow her clothes, and realized that I would never become her. Until that moment, I had always thought that when I was her age — just two years away from where I was RIGHT NOW — that I would be as vivacious, outgoing, confident and adorable (she is 5′ 2″, I’m 5′ 11″) as she is. At that moment, as I was maybe 11 and she was 13, I realized that the difference was more than just years — that it was personalities, and while mine had its charms, it wasn’t going to morph into hers.

Jennei and I celebrating something … Christmas? …

We were more the textbook ‘arguing’ sisters than best friends growing up, and so rare times of true tenderness stick out in my mind. In particular, I remember Jennei teaching me how to shave. We were living in the apartment we moved into with my mom after my parents’ divorce, and I think my mom thought I was too young to shave. I was, in the peculiar way of pre-teen girls, obsessed with the (pale, invisible) hairs on my legs, and was convinced that shaving would give me both street cred and beauty.

After whining and begging for a while, I convinced Jennei to teach me. She sat on the tub next to me, in a rare role of patient teacher (patience is not something my sister and I excel in). She showed me how to lather up on one leg, and then how to run the razor up it. I was terrified of cutting myself, and so she showed me again, and instructed me when to rinse off the razor. She helped me with my whole first leg, and then stayed with me as I did the second one myself.

Our interactions tended more toward anger and jealousy, fighting over who got the most affection and who was the most beloved, so my memories of true sisterhood, of supporting each other against the MAN (or the Mom, in this case), are very cherished.

It wasn’t that I needed to shave, but I did need a sister to stand up for me and teach me how to be a woman. Thanks, Jennei, for the helping hand and the loving lesson.

I’ve wanted to be a mother since I first understood the word, ‘mother.’ My yearning for a baby goes back pre-memory, and I had a lot of expectations built up around that role. When I was finally pregnant with who would become Oliver Erwin Kiker, I was filled with dreams, ideas and goals for this wee boy, and visions for the kind of amazing mother I would be.

Oliver: sweet, fierce, beautiful, smart, tender Oliver, reset all of that. On the very first day of his life, he taught me that all of my ideas about having a baby were completely, totally different from the reality of having a baby. From nursing to changing diapers to sleeping (oh how I missed sleeping) nothing was as I expected it to be.

Those first few months, I floundered. I pretended. I cried. I nursed and listened and asked and played and searched his eyes for what he needed from me. Jason and I learned to hold him, and to bathe him, and to feed him, and we gradually grew into a family.

We’ve had a FLICKR site since Oliver was born, tracking his progress and the progress of his two younger sisters, Allyson and Eleanor. When I was thinking, today, on Oliver’s 6th birthday, about the day I finally realized we were a family. It was a completely random day — if it weren’t for our other site, I would have no idea when it was. Only that he was young, and it was before Allyson was born (they are 19 months apart).

Oliver had learned that his mouth would make crazy sounds if he made a sound (ohhhhh) and held my hand while smacking my hand against his face. It delighted him. It delighted me. It made us feel together, and funny, and competent, and loved. It was a beautiful sound, and it make me ‘break into blossom.’

March 23 was not the day I expected Oliver to be born, and after his birth things didn’t go the way I expected they would go, and that is part of the thousands and thousands of things my beloved son has taught me over the years: Things don’t have to go as expected to be wonderful, perfect and right.

As he’s grown up, and become his own kid, he’s also taught me that children listen to what you tell them, and act on it. When he started to want to wear skirts and dresses, two years ago, Jason and I told him that he shouldn’t, that people would talk about him, that it ‘wasn’t done.’ He listened, and then said, ‘but momma, why should I care what people say?’ and ‘why isn’t it done?’ When we finally ran out of excuses, he began to wear dresses.

Oliver and Allyson on a slide

He still does, most days, although today he chose pants and a shirt with a glittery pink belt. When the 13 kids at his party split into gender lines, he was outside, playing soccer with the boys. When they talked about Oliver, they didn’t talk about what he wears, but about his Legos, his charm, and his laughter (which is a bellyful awesome one).

He’s right. It doesn’t matter what people say, and here in Seattle at least, it is done. It’s hard to limit myself to just two lessons from Oliver, but the lesson of life turning out better than your best-laid plans and the lesson of asking ‘why’ are just two reasons why this boy is someone I am so deeply glad to know.

I’ve been writing this thank you note since the day I left my junior year of high school. Before the Internet, in all its robustness, I called Westbury High School and called Rice University to try to track down Katherine Drake, a 1990 graduate of their chemistry program and one-year teacher at Westbury. I have been trying to send this one thank you note to this amazing woman for decades.

Ms. Drake had just married her college sweetheart, Earl, when she decided to teach at Westbury High School. As a first-year science teacher, she was assigned a lot of beginner level and repeat level classes. The very in-demand honors chemistry teacher ended up with a class of almost 40 honors kids — too much for one class. So, Mrs. Drake was given one honors chemistry class — and I was lucky enough to be part of that cohort.

I had many magical teachers — Mr. Slackman, your entry is coming — and yet Mrs. Drake has always stood head and shoulders above the rest. Allowing Patrick Hallmark and me to come in early every day to ask questions, bringing in books during our ‘reading time’ to inspire us (she introduced me to the wonders of Anne Tyler with Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant that year). She even taught me how to deal with blisters, and also let me sleep in her class after we went to my first concert — Paul Simon!

Me and the ever-beautiful Karen Andrews in my junior year; oh I wish I had a photo of me and Mrs. Drake.

But what I remember most is how she encouraged me in a subject that I had zero innate skill in — chemistry. She would go to any length to show me my potential, even in a subject that I had to work very, very hard in to succeed.

Her patience with me was limitless. Her ability to explain really complicated subjects in a way that I understand stays with me to this day.

And because she believed in me, despite all evidence to the contrary, I worked so hard to please her. While I phoned it in for much of high school, I studied my heart out for my chemistry final. I needed an A to do something … qualify for something? … and I wanted to show Mrs. Drake that she was right — that I was smart enough to understand chemistry.

I remember asking her so many questions, and I remember her patient, kind answers. I most of all remember being at home, the day after my junior year finals. I walked in, and pressed ‘play’ on the answering machine. My mom and I had a hilarious, hilarious rap that we sang into the machine (“This is the Prestons’ answering machine, leave a message, but keep it clean! We’re out right now but we’re listening in, at the sound of the beep you may begin! Beep beep!”).

Immediately after that, I was shocked and worried to hear Mrs. Drake’s voice on my home machine — what was she calling to say? Then I heard the words I remember to this day: “Elizabeth, you did it. You scored the highest score in the class for the final, a 92.”

That — my success (never again repeated in chemistry), her willingness to call me at home, her belief in me and her support — was what I’ve been trying to say thank you for over the last 22 years. She changed my life; she taught me to expect I could succeed far more than I expected. She taught me more than I can capture here — and she never came back to Westbury. She went elsewhere, and no matter how many times I search for Katherine Drake, or Earl, I can’t find them.

Wherever you are, Mrs. Drake, I hope your heart has been hearing my endless thank you— for the call, the books, and the lessons, beloved Mrs. Drake. I wouldn’t be who I am today without you.

(I have photos with all my other beloved teachers, but no photos with Mrs. Drake — I thought she’d be back for my senior year to take pictures.)

I started dating Jeff Wilkinson by inviting him to go with me to the Rebelette Ball (… Rebelettes … it’s a long story) in our junior year of high school. I have so many stories about Jeff and the almost four years of high school and college that we dated ( … off and on, as these things happened) that I am struggling to choose one. Some memories are just snapshots (Jeff saying, “rich, not gaudy” in a tone my husband and I still use to this day. Learning about baseball to cheer on Jeff’s beloved Pittsburgh Pirates. Watching Christmas Vacation and watching Jeff recite every line — something I continue to do each year, reciting them now myself.).

The beloved Wilkinsons at home, circa 1991.

One thing that suffuses our time together in high school is the love of his parents, Tom and Tana, and his sister Taryn. I hadn’t been that close with another family before in my life, and I found them warm, funny and fascinating. I have my own snapshots of them (shopping with Taryn for clothes, feeling like an indulgent big sister; tasting Tom’s [Mr. Wilkinson to me!] beloved salt and vinegar potato chips, which I despised then and love now; eating vegetarian soup that Tana [Mrs. Wilkinson still in my mind … ] made just for me, and pretending I didn’t notice it was made of chicken stock), but tonight’s specific thank you is for the sense of humor they shared with me.

Theirs was a family that loved to laugh. They traveled to Europe together, they waxed cars (endlessly) together, they ate dinner together. They shared a goofy and theatrical sense of humor that I envied and admired. One night, they took me out to a Chinese restaurant we all loved. In Houston, around 1991, eating with chopsticks was a rare and wonderful feat. Because my parents spent four years in Japan (my sister and I were both born there), we learned early how to use them, and by high school I was quite a master.

The Wilkinsons were pretty awed by my skill, and someone asked, “How did you learn to use chopsticks so well?” Without missing a beat, I said, “I was born in Japan.” Of course, I forgot that my audience this night knew me pretty well, and knew that while I had indeed been born, my whole family had moved back to the U.S. when I was just four-months old. There was a moment of sustained hilarity until Mr. Wilkinson said, “They teach you at four months old in Japan?” and then we all just cracked up.

Even in recreating the night, I can’t clarify what was so wonderful about it — the fact that we were all laughing at me so gently, that I was so known, that we were at a restaurant we all loved and I felt like ‘part of the group,’ or just that I was so happy to be in the same circle as this lovely family. Probably a mix of all of the above.

When I see or talk to Jeff, every 10 years or so, I always ask about his beloved parents and sister — he was my first true love, and I always include his family in the warm memories I carry with me. I was lucky to know them at a seminal moment in my life. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson, Taryn and dear Jeff, for welcoming me into your heart and home.

I still use chopsticks really well. I was born in Japan, you know.