Jonathan Livingston

Saturday night was magical.

Mission San Luis Obispo de Telosa

Our concert at the Mission went very, very well. The Mission was packed and in the front row sat Smitty and Jeanine, Josh and Heidi and Craig and AnnMarie. The latter two are very good friends of both Josh and I.

So I not only got to sing for Dan, I got to sing for all of them.

And afterwards we all headed out to a coffee shop just to talk to each other for awhile.

Did I say awhile? Two and a half hours later, my stomach hurting from laughing so much, I had to announce that I had to leave. I had to sing again the next day!

Now, my friend Josh is generally a quiet man. But he is SOOOOO easy to needle. And Craig and I have made it our mission in life to get under his skin. Well, at least embarrass him to death in public.

Joshua

We decided that Josh had married an angel with great powers of transformation. Josh was wearing slacks and a NICE sweater. And no hat. His beard was trimmed and his hair was cut. One year of marriage and the man is nearly unrecognizable.

So we spent a goodly amount of time praising Heidi.

Heidi

But then the conversation took its usual turn into Craig's stories. Most of them law related. But some having to do with his wife and his children.

AnnMarie's disbelief in the latest Craig story

And all along my new brother, Smitty, listened and laughed.

Smitty

It had been a very hard night for Smitty. He misses Dan as much as I do. To see him laugh was golden music to my ears. He had been so impressed with the choir and now he fit in with my friends.

Before Smitty left that night, he told a story about my mother. He was fairly itinerant when he was single. He was trying different jobs and different places. But he was Dan's best friend. So my mother, who had just taken up oil painting, painted a picture for him. He sent it on to his mother for safekeeping. The painting hung in her house until her death and then went to his sister's home where it hung for the next 15 years. Smitty didn't know where it had gone as it was in a room at his sister's house that he never went into.

Today I receive a large package from Louisiana. I don't know anyone in Louisiana. Well, I didn't until now.

It was a picture of Jonathan Livingston Seagull with the initials "BG" in the bottom left corner. BG=Barbara Gisvold, my mother.

Jonothan Livingston Seagull by Barbara Gisvold

My friends had no idea that my mother painted but they were amazed by Smitty's stories. He didn't tell any of us that it was on its way.

It was soooo fitting that Jonathan should be part of a conversation of three lawyers who came from different backgrounds but who all had to find their way to their niche in life. We all had to spread our wings and ignore the naysayers.

It was a night. What a night.