And time keeps moving fast

We lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand from 1981- 1983.  When we arrived there, Courtney was three and Morgan was six months old.   Our predecessors had a maid, cook, gardener and baby maid.  Through correspondence, I asked them to find other work for the baby maid.  I was going to be home with my kids full time.

The cook lasted for a while, but I had to send her to look for work elsewhere.    So we had the maid and gardener, a married couple and their two children.  Daughter Ann was a few years older than Courtney, and they were best friends!

I spent many hours with Alec and Julie.  The kids really loved them and they loved the kids.   They really felt like family we were so close.

It was Alec and Julie who paid me the greatest compliment on my mothering I ever received.   Since we practiced co-sleeping (the kids slept with us), and extended breastfeeding, they told me that I raised my babies just like a Thai.  For Thai parents, attachment parenting is the norm.

After we left Thailand I lost touch.  I was fortunate enough to be able to make a trip to Thailand in 1987.  Austin and I attended a WHO conference as a representative of La Leche League. While there, we visited friends in Bangkok and flew up to Chiang Mai.

I had a La Leche League Group while we were living in Chiang Mai, and had kept in touch with many of the moms I met there.  I was lucky enough to have a friend to stay with.  She knew where I could find Alec and Julie.  Austin and I were able to go to their house and have a visit.

Since then we have exchanged a few notes here and there.

In the years in between then and now, Alec and Julie immigrated to the US and became US citizens!    They are now retired and have had a house built in Chiang Mai.

Alec and Julie are in Virginia for a while visiting.  Alec contacted me, and we were able to get together yesterday for the first time in 37 year.

So much time has passed and so many things in our lives have changed.   But the feelings, closeness, friendship and love are still there.   I have an album/ scrapbook with pictures of our time in Chiang Mail.  It was pretty neat to look through it together!

I called Morgan, and put the phone on speaker.  They remember him as a curly haired little boy and now he is a 39 year old man.   Morgan (and the whole family) was invited to visit them in Chiang Mai!

We took them to the Thai temple near our house.  It was closed, but they were about to see it from the outside.  Then we all went to lunch together at a Thai restaurant.   Alec talked mostly English.  Julie and I chattered away in Thai.  I get stuck now and then when I can't remember a word, but for the most part we did very well.

It's friends and connections that make my world a happy place!