My friend, Susanne, messaged me to say she had something she wanted to give me and asked if we could meet for coffee. I was intrigued. Even if Susanne hadn’t had something she wanted to give me, I would have said yes to meeting up with her and her husband, Phil – they are two of those people who never fail to bring me joy whenever we’re together.

So we met up at the Stompin’ Grounds coffee shop in La Conner this morning. I’ll write more about the joy of being in the company of Susanne and Phil in another non-public post. But in this post, I want to share what Susanne gifted me with this morning.

She handed me a card in a protective plastic sleeve. The side I saw first was the back side – and there were all these names I recognized as Pop’s friends from his climbing community – Jim and Lou Whittaker; Jim’s wife, Dianne Roberts; Jim Wickwire; Galen Rowell; Steve Marts; Fred Dunham; Leif Patterson; Rob Schaller; and Fred Stanley. Then Susanne said, “But that’s not all. Turn it over.”

And there was a copy of a watercolor of K2 by my pop, Dee Molenaar!

I started tearing up.

Susanne explained that her former husband, Jim Taylor, who’d passed in 2018, had received his degree in geology from WWU, and had acquired the post card from the 1975 expedition to K2 through the Geology Club there. When Susanne saw that the artist for the K2 painting was Dee Molenaar, she thought of me, and wanted me to have this card.

Susanne’s kindness to me this morning totally lifted me, and made my day.

Thank you, dear friend!

(I love this: “CARRIED BY RUNNER FROM K2 BASE CAMP – 18,000′)