The Downton Dowager’s words ring in my ears as I head to work this Monday morning. “What is a ‘week-end’?”  For those of us who are middle class, we are keenly aware of the word and meaning of ‘week-end’ (emphasis on the ‘end’). And for us it was a week-end of connecting.

Sitting around a small table, leisurely eating blueberry pancakes, talking and sharing, connecting with our kids. Sitting on ocean rocks and absorbing the world around — a world of sea gulls, ocean spray and early morning scuba divers, connecting with the world around us.

It was a weekend of connecting, connecting with old friends — one of my husband’s closest college friends and his wife. It is one of those friendships that was able to evolve past two single guys to include their wives and families. We walked together through early marriage, tiny apartments and minuscule pay checks and continued to connect in the tiny kids/tiny problem stage all the way to later stages of houses with mortgages and bigger kids/bigger problems. With this couple, more than any other, we have shared hours of laughter.

The weekend continued with more connecting. This time it was my friend Pegi, my closest friend during my first year of marriage. We were both enrolled in a year-long program at a Bible school in Chicago getting the mandated credits that would make us eligible to join a mission organization and move overseas to remote and not so remote places. There we would labor and our husbands would be martyred while we became the famous, lovely, gracious red-haired and dark-haired women of faith. We would speak to crowds of thousands about faith and trust. Only of course, that didn’t happen.

Instead we both cried non-stop during the psychological testing and decided we were either under or over-sexed and knew that those who oversaw said mission organizations would surely disqualify us.

Pegi was my gift during that year. And we saw each other for the first time yesterday since sitting in a small Chicago apartment in late August of 1985. Over curry and chicken tikka we talked and laughed. It was too short.

I know these connections are precious. We know life can change quickly, and we’ve little control over many of those changes. So to the Downton Dowager and any others who don’t know the meaning of the glorious weekend I say that weekends are made for connecting.

How was your weekend? Was it a weekend of connecting? Would love to hear through the comments.