Just last night, Dennis, Denise and I were invited down the street to our friend's house for dinner.  Mary-Beth and Gordon are a loving and giving couple who lavish their kindness on us in many ways.  Eating dinner at their house is a special treat.  Another couple from Biot, Louise and Roy, were also there.  As usual the food was spectacular as was the cheddar cheese :) and for me a treat of vodka that Gordon purchased for me to try.  It had a lovely hint of summer grass with sweet clover.  Amazing.

But more than the food and drink.  The time spent with people who really care and open their hearts and homes to you, sharing all they have with you, is what I still feel wrapped around me this morning.  It lingers around my heart like the bouquet of a favorite perfume that clings to the clothing long after it has been applied.  A sweet hint wafting around me.  To know and enjoy the company of true companions, people who will laugh with you and cry, visit your mother in the hospital and stay with her so that she is not alone or scared.  People who give and give without ever asking for a return, who shake off thanks and refuse compliment.  I feel humbled by the love we have been shown here.  When we need help or we have questions, someone unfailingly comes to our rescue, expending themselves for our sakes.  On our first visit to France, a family we had never met invited us to dinner but when we explained that we didn't have a car to drive to their home, they gave us theirs to use for the entire month. And then again invited us to dinner.  What a brotherhood, what a family of loved ones we have here protecting us and sharing what they have with us.  Thank you to each of them for the lovely meals and sleepovers we have enjoyed, thank you for the love they have shown Denise, a stranger to them in many ways, and thank you for trying so hard to speak to me in English so that I am not too lost and confused.  Your kindess and compassion should be marked and remembered.  It will be, forever, by me.

We are headed home to RI and FL at the end of this week, to be pampered and cared for by long known friends and loving family.  Dennis and I feel blessed beyond words by the friends and family we have, here and in the States, that have worked so hard to support us and help us so that we can help Denise.  Thank you from the very bottom of our full hearts. No matter where we are, we never feel alone.  And we are always home.