Dear Friend,

I lie back on the synthetic leather. The fluoride fumes and sickly, pea-green shade of the corner office meld together in a dreaded concoction of dental hygiene. Latex fingers invade my mouth. No, I don't floss enough. A set of pink scrubs in tennis shoes squeaks around the sterile tiles near my head, and a pair of thin, black rimmed glasses frame two chocolate irises above the paper mask. 
She spills something on my paper bib. I crack a joke. The eyes smile. 

Then she laughs.

And I swear, it sounds just like you. 

And who would have guessed, in a night I'm feeling far from home, I'd find your laughter here behind the mask of a friendly hygienist. 
It's a beautiful laugh. Solid and genuine. 
The kind of laugh that would make me feel warm all over and the kind I'd want to immediately befriend. It brightens a room and makes you glow. And then your eyes get all shiny because you always end up tearing up a bit. 

Man, I've missed that laugh.

So like the idiot I am, I kept up a steady stream of lame jokes around the dental tools, closed my eyes and just listened to that laugh. Pretending for some inexplicable reason it was you back here in this city. Thinking two months is a long time, and mentally digging my toes into the Florida sand.   

And all too soon it was "nice teeth," take your toothbrush, and out the glass door with the little jingle bells tied to the knob clamoring behind me.
And I started missing you all over again.

And we will speak soon, and you will laugh again because, ill admit, perhaps this is all a bit creepy. But that won't change anything. I will always look for you guys at football games, and every drive past the empty apartment will tempt me to stop in and say hello. And anytime I meet someone from Florida I will still ask if they know you, and I might cry about it a little every once in a while. But you're the one who taught me its alright to cry.

And I went home and watched Tommy Boy for the 47th time and thought of you both. And there's a reason it's my favorite movie, and no, it doesn't have all that much to do with Chris Farley. And soon I'll drive over to the youth house for our d-group dinner. And I'll walk in talking too loud (as usual). And we'll hug, and tease, and probably joke about poop. And I'll tilt my head back and laugh too loud. And Katy and I will share some nonsensical joke, and I'll make that obnoxious squeaking noise when something is funny and I can't seem to find air, and she will start crying, and I'll tease that we've lost her.
But halfway through dinner I'll look around the table, and I'll think about how much we've all grown. How hand motion illustration of leadership in vulnerability have transformed silent suffering into open community. How five girls who lay around in the summer sunlight that filtered in golden stripes through the living room blinds are not the same five now. How a new love for the greatest Love has taken root here. And despite doubt and fear and heartbreak and loneliness and complacency, this table around me has become that something I cried for by the pool in Fairmont. And I will think yet again that this is your legacy too.

Because tonight I find myself homesick for a place I've never been.  I miss my family, and we don't share any last name.  

But tonight I'm finding "family" to be something much more eclectic than the little group formed by blood.  I'm finding my family album containing names and faces nothing like my own. I see you two and your sweet, sweet Emma who is by far the greatest puppy in the world.  I see my tall, energetic big sis, with her blond ponytail, God-filled heart, ready smile, and laugh as loud as my own. I see my older brothers, from college freshmen to thirty-somethings -- the writers, the teasers, the examples, the mentors, the caring hearts, and the all-in-ones.  I see a sea of blond sisses, from the human incarnation of a sunshine-flavored cupcake to the strong spirit of a country girl, and my fellow brunette with her beautiful heart and face to match it who inspires me with her extravagant love.   

And the more I look around me the faster my family album grows.

And it's filled to the brim with carefully worded notes in perfect cursive, old Polaroids, and torn edges.  It has pages of splatter paint and edgy, artist quotes on cardboard. It has poetry that blows my mind and warms my heart as only poetry can.  It's never neat.  The pictures aren't straight or even.  Katy is making a face nearly every one, and the glue shows around the edges. 

And I think once again that it couldn't get any more perfect. 

Because no one in this family is perfect.  No one came with it all together (and some don't even know they're in it at all) but as far as I'm concerned they don't have a choice.  Some I've known all my life and some I only knew for four days in Georgia, but something is strong enough to bind these dogeared pages together into a funny, awkward, piebald community of a scrapbook.  And that something transformed these hearts like only that something can.

So here's to you both and that something you showed me so well. Here's to the family dinners and theological talks. Here's to the first people in my life to know everything and not run away. Here's to the movie nights we shared, and here's to the ones we would have shared -- the ones we will share. Here's to my family, the people I have loved so much, the people I will love forever and always. Here's to good times past and future.
And, friend, here's to your laugh.