Visiting The Past

A friend joined us on a visit to a couple who had been a part of our lives 30 years ago and have recently moved back to the North Island.   Our friend was then a young man about to go to University to study as a forester.  My forester was about to be made redundant and so was his boss, Maika, who we were visiting. In recent years Maika  has suffered three strokes and while he looks well he forgets the word he wants to say.  His wife seems un changed by time.   We shared lunch and the men told stories from the time they had worked together.  Yes I know that would have made a good picture but I'm still too shy to ask.
At the end of the visit we were given a handsome coffee table size book "The Jade of New Zealand, Pounamu."  Russell Beck with Maika Mason  Photography by Andris Apse.  Andris is one of New Zealand's leading landscape photographers so I was very pleased about that alone.  Maika has a long association with Pounamu having been raised on the West Coast of the South Island  near the Arahura River which is a source of Pounamu.  He is a leading authority on Ngai Tahu (the main tribe of the South Island) history, traditions and values associated with the West Coast Pounamu.  The small piece of Pounamu on the book is our piece Maika gave to us many years ago.  It is fractured and so can't be carved and has been polished instead. 
At the beginning of the year when we are thinking about what we value and making plans for the coming year perhaps it is also nice to look back and see where we have come from and who was with us along the way.  Some people will not go all the way with us and I think it's nice to say what we feel while they are alive and not wait until a funeral.