I’ve started painting recently. Not painting the house or changing colors of rooms or walls but painting actual pictures. I missed going to painting parties, and I like to paint, but I never seemed to be able to think of what to paint. So, I found a place online where I could order supplies and tutorials and paint. I set up the former “man cave” as my wellness room, with workout equipment, a portable sauna, and art supplies, and I spend a lot of time down there in what has become a little bit of a happy place for me.
I even found another online site where I could order kits and we could paint tiles for a national art installation, so I did. We ended up having a group of nine come up and paint kits for an afternoon. Each of us had our own ideas and every painting was unique. The best part was that we all got to have some laughter and fellowship with people who are from different corners of the country, different backgrounds, and who all have been brought together by fate. That made me think about fate and that everything happens for a reason, even if we don’t always know what the reason is.
The reality is that we don’t have to know why things happen the way they do. We only have to accept that they do. We don’t have to always have every answer to every question. For that matter, we don’t always have to have the questions! We just have to know that we are right where we are supposed to be.
Even having said all of that, the nine of us that were around the tables that day were people who were all brought together in some way or another by Grubby. If I had not gone to Greece in 2009, I would never have met him. If I’d never met him, then those nine people wouldn’t have been brought together in our living room last month. And, the really interesting part is that three of them have never met Grubby.
When I moved up here in 2012, I never would have believed that I would meet my BFF who also has a 912 phone number… how random is that? But, I did, and then, while working one Thanksgiving night at JCP, I saw this dude who kept watching John while we were doing cash pickups so he could get ready to go home. Like any good Asset Protection person, I stayed very alert and observant, and this dude popped up at different registers whenever we were there. Of course, I was suspicious, and I just knew I was going to have to take this dude down… and he was no small dude! After we deposited the cash into the safe, John prepared to go home, and he asked me if I wanted to meet Belk’s LP person. I came face-to-face with that dude, who it turned out, had no plans to try to take that bag of money, but instead, it was just Derrick! We get a chuckle out of that story when we tell it now, but I was ready to fight that night!
Then in 2017, I met Tom and Debbie, Grubby’s friends from Cuba, when they came to our wedding. Since John was there, he met them too, and the following year, we all cruised together again – this time with Derrick – so this little group of six with ties to the Navy was born.
When Grubby died, John and Derrick were here, and Tom and Debbie came up. John and Derrick and I saw them when we went to cruise out of Port Canaveral a couple of years ago, and they had talked about moving away from Cocoa (personally, I think they’re nuts, but that’s just because I miss the beach!). Lo and behold, they found themselves landing in the NC Piedmont, less than an hour from me, and 20 minutes from John and Derrick. I still think they’re nuts, but I’m glad they’re nearby. And, Debbie’s “mom” lives in Winston-Salem, so they’ve since shared Sara with us.
There was a new woman who popped up in the First Help Families group on Facebook a couple of years ago, and I noticed that her profile picture was the Greensboro PD badge, so I reached out and met Kitty. First, through Zoom meetings and finally in person for lunch one day. I learned that Kitty liked bread and dessert just as much as I do, can cuss like a Sailor, and not only that, she got me. Kitty and I introduced our daughters, Abby and Maddie, at the First Help Family Weekend in 2023 in Dallas, where Kitty and Maddie taught us an extremely valuable lesson: how to make fart noises with straws! Although all of the four of us hate that our lives crossed the way they did, I know I am beyond grateful that they have become such an important part of our lives. Kitty had heard me talk about John and Derrick, and vice versa, so the tile painting became the opportunity for them to finally meet in person. Now, we all just need to cruise together… Kitty and I will bring the straws!
So it was that on a Saturday afternoon, a little over four years after my life changed forever, nine people who otherwise would never have met came together because of our common ties – each one different, but each one because of Grubby – and our stories and our paintings are as unique as the people who painted them.
Fun reflection!