On December 4, I traversed the storm to meet with my six college friends for our monthly coffee gathering. Somehow we have managed to meet most months over the past twenty-one years. Sometimes we can't all be there, but the effort is made. We set times and places to share about the mundane and the exciting. We chat and laugh over nothing. We listen and cry over the significant. We rejoice. We sorrow.

We have traversed some storms together. Yet, more often than not, we have celebrated the reliefs in life. Somehow we make it back to the familiar times and places of warm comfort found in lifetime friendship.