FRIENDSHIP

My friend Suzanne

Is distinctive.

Her rule book isn’t like anyone else’s.

She spends her days

Not just tending, but entertaining splendidly,

Her grandkids.

That is what she had been doing

The day she invited me to go to Deer Valley

To a concert by the Utah Symphony and Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

I thought we were to leave around 5:00

Because she wanted to allow plenty of time.

Granted, she did try to call while our phone was in use.

I was about to give up when she came at 5:40.

After tending Lisa’s kids all day,

She had stopped by to fix dinner for her son and grandson

Before coming to pick me up.

She had warned me to dress warm as it was outside in the mountains.

Her niece had won four tickets on a radio station.

Driving up from Provo, she was to meet us with the vouchers at Deer Valley.

I had spent far too much time dressing warmly

digging out a hat, scarf, gloves, umbrella, coat, rainjacket, blankets.

Suzanne was in white Capri’s and a white short-sleeved blouse.

As we buzz through Salt Lake City,

I asked her how she knows where Deer Valley is.

“I figure we’ll just run into it,” she humors me.

When we pass the exit to Heber City,

I tell her I think we’ve gone too far.

I am remembering that Deer Valley is in Park City,

the exit we have already passed.

About this time,

She gets a text from her niece

“Can’t make it.  Sorry.”

Suzanne is cool as a cucumber

But she has to be seething.

“We are here.

What do we do?”

We turn around and head back

And somehow find Deer Valley.

It’s not that easy.

You don’t just run into it.

They are playing the Star Spangled Banner

As we get out of the car

After snatching the last parking spot in the VIP parking lot.

She explains at the ticket window

What has happened

And how far we’ve driven

Even showing them the text

From her niece.

I honestly don’t know how she did it—

..maybe because it had already started;

..maybe because someone turned in two tickets;

..maybe because we’re old;(well, one of us is)

..maybe because there’s plenty of room on the grass

—somehow she finagles two tickets

We trudge up the hill to find

A spot on the lawn.

Just as we get ourselves settled on our blankets,

It starts to sprinkle.

The couple in front of us

uses a plastic tablecloth to shield themselves

from the rain.

It blocks out the entire stage for us

as it billows in the wind.

During break while we are waiting in line

At the restroom, the heavens open up

With a cosmic downpour.

The men who are coming in,

enduring no line, are soaked.

When we go back out, the rain has stopped.

By now the crowd has thinned considerably

and we are able to move down and in,

garnering ringside seats for the last half of the concert.

The tablecloth couple left so we could have stayed

where we were but it is nice to be closer

where we can see and hear

and feel embraced by the music.

It is really quite powerful

as they perform Negro spirituals,

popular American songs from

Fiddler on the Rood, Music Man, Sound of Music and the like.

They close with a patriotic review narrated

by Lloyd D. Newell.

American the Beautiful and, the Tabernacle Choir’s signature song,

the one they won the Emmy for,

The Battle-Hymn of the Republic, closed the program.

Such a wondrous and strange night.

I tell Suzanne we’ll have to bear our testimonies

about it on Fast Sunday.

All the little miracles that

add up to be greater than the sum of the whole.

THANK YOU, Suzanne, for an eventful evening.