Haley’s cut-paper image of Tom and I in The Epic Van.

As we were leaving my friend Meredith’s house to hit the road, her amazing daughter, Haley, came by with a gift: a small cut-paper representation of Tom and I in The Epic Van, heading out on the road.

Haley, a wonderful artist who works in many mediums, is now mastering this Matisse persona.

In Haley’s beautiful piece, you can see me, with my gray hair and red glasses, Tom, with his hat and sunglasses, The Epic Van herself, the places we go and the things we see: saguaros from our home state, mountains, oceans, pine trees, flowers and the sun. We’re waving and happy.

Worlds, in a tiny square.

I adore it, and I adore Haley.

I feel part of the Meredith’s family now. Meredith and I have been good friends for years and have traveled the world together, along with our friend Jackie. We met when all our children were young and Jackie had arranged a trip to Mexico, to create an art camp for the children in her mother’s village in La Manzanilla. We took many trips to Mexico, and in the past few years, travelled to Morocco, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. In March, we visited Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.

My mother died when we were in Uzbekistan, and Meredith was there to comfort me and Tom.

When we returned, we sold my mother’s house, where we often perched in her guest room. But we were tethered to Phoenix until we could finish my mother’s celebration of life and meet with lawyers about settling her estate.

It was too hot to stay in The Epic Van, and we needed a place to sleep.

Meredith immediately offered her guest room, and we happily moved into Chez Mer, her lovely home, filled to overflowing with art, some collected in our travels some made by Haley.

Little did we, or Meredith, know that it would last six weeks, a tenure that can surely kill many fragile friendships.

Instead, ours only deepened.

I spent hours in Meredith’s pool, Corona in hand, as she walked back and forth with her leaf scoop, and we discussed, life, love, children, mothers, politics, travel, illness, fear, joy, creativity and aging.

We solved absolutely none of the world’s problems, but we got our opinions off our chests. And I again floated my idea of a commune of friends aging together. Brilliant, I know.

I spent other hours with her daughter, Madeline, back from the wars in Washington, D.C., where she was a victim of the mass firings at USAID, and looking for a job. Our son, Nate, came by and commiserated about his difficult job hunt. Then we would watch Project Runway, hoot at some of the godawful mistakes and wonder at some of the winning designs. What were we missing?

Madeline’s sweet partner, Emily, come by to play games, to howl about a terrible bang trim (they actually were kind of cute, kind of) and to share nanny stories. Haley stopped by to share dog stories from her PetSmart shifts, her dear partner Carmen hobbled gamely in on crutches with an injured ankle to provide wonderful deep bits of wisdom.

Daughter Cat joined us for her first pedicure, and we luxuriated in warm bubbly water and a sugar scrub. And daughter Cassie’s boyfriend Kevin came by for a day on his way back to their home in California, bringing great stories of his devotion to teaching.

Jackie came and talked about her cancer diagnosis. We hugged her, and pledged anything we could provide. We went with her to doctor’s appointments. We read the three-ring binder provided by her surgeons, and celebrated the fact that her cancer was found early and was tiny.

I went out with my friend Tami, for food, conversation, and to plan a trip to Australia. I popped out to my studio to sew things for Periwinkle Polka Dot, the small business Tami and I share.

Tom cooked, we brought in takeout, Nate came by, we did errands, we planned mom’s celebration, family flew in from around the country and gathered at Meredith’s, admiring her art and her generosity.

When it was all done, the celebration over, the family gone, the errands that could be done, done, we readied ourselves to leave, taking the final things to storage, loading the last bits into The Epic Van, and saying our goodbyes.

Then Haley stopped by with this piece, such a loving, personal, touching gesture.

It filled my heart. It will always remind me of this interlude of love, joy, heartache, caring, and generosity, of the friend and her family that took us in and sheltered us during one of the worst, hard times.