Day-Hay, Mr. Philately, and I attended the Distinguished Philatelist dinner last night. (Kat had a cold and stayed home to avoid infecting all the older people who attend.) Usually, I attend for Mr. Philately�s sake and Day-Hay does not come. Attending is a small thing to do to make Mr. Philately happy and it only takes an evening. Most of the people who attend are sweet, although the normal topic of conversation there interests me very little. Last night, however, we attended for someone else. They were honoring Claude and we all owed it to him to be there.

When you have a young family and the extended family is far away, life can be a bit lonely. If you (and your children) are lucky, different people step up to fill some of the void. They don�t replace aunts and uncles and grandparents but they fill-in for them when they can�t be there. These are the people who look out for you, ask after you, and make you feel important and special. They are people who will give a word of advice if asked and who connect you to a bigger whole. And, if you�re smart, you give thanks for them for your children�s sake and your own.

Claude is one of these people. Claude is younger than the average member of a philatelic club�which means he is under 65. He is a sweet man who immigrated from France in young adulthood. In the years when my children often attended stamp clubs, stamp shows, and other philatelic events, Claude was always there, chatting with them, sometimes handing them philatelic material for their collections, discussing their collections with great interest and seriousness, and fooling around with them in a low-key way when the adult-oriented meetings became too tedious for a pre-teens (and some spouses.)

It was Claude that a younger and more shy Day-Hay sat with at the awards dinner up in Green Bay. We arrived at that dinner late because Day-Hay had torn her dress as she was putting it on and it took me a bit of time to repair the damage. (She couldn�t just wear another because we had not brought another.) We showed up just at the appointed time and could not find four seats together. We could not even find two seats together�and Day-Hay was seven. Claude convinced the person near him to shift around the table and Day-Hay sat with him. She was well-cared for. Somehow, he convinced most of the table to give Day-Hay their deserts. (Luckily, she did not over-eat the sweets but I suspect that Claude would have convinced her not to anyway.)

Now that my kids don�t attend stamp events as often, Claude still is a presence. He sends messages and an occasional stamp home with Mr. Philately. He asks after the girls. He makes sure that not all of the topics at my table are philatelic ones. He�s just there in a world where being there seems so little�and so much.

Just knowing Claude is around makes me feel less alone si I was pleased to see him being honored, to have him ask us to sit at his table with his wife and grown children, and to watch him glow with excitement. Sometimes, attending the Distinguished Philatelist Dinner is a bit of a sacrifice. Not last night. Attendance was a small enough gift to give to a man who has given us so much.

When I sit around counting my blessings, I count Claude as one of them.

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An update on my grandniece: She is out of intensive care. The brain appears to have stopped swelling and she is alert, eating, and attempting to play. The main concern now is what permanent damage, if any, there may be. She can only see out of one eye and there are other motor (and perhaps cognitive) impairments but we won�t really know what the situation is until the swelling subsides. Thank you for all your prayers and kind thoughts.

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