"The moon was so bright, we were playing soccer in the fields, me and my brothers and sisters.  It was one o'clock in the morning, I think I was about ten, I'll never forget that" he said. Not only was the image of that memory so crystal clear, but the look on his face as he told me, made the story all the more warm and fuzzy. It may have been almost thirty years ago, but his face lit up as though the moon were shining thru his eyes with the recollection. I felt a deep rush of warmth, like someone had just given me an unexpected gift, a treasure.

"My Father rented a van that summer and determined that we would see all of Ireland instead of just visiting my two sets of grandparents, like we did each year. That particular night he'd pulled over to the side of the road, tired from all the driving.  He walked up to the farmhouse, knocked on the door and asked the people there if he and his family could camp out in their field."  Of course, they'd said.  "We kids had a blast."

We'd met for a simple lunch to discuss some business, this  young man and I. He'd commented on my sweater, the knit, the stitches.  I told him I'd gotten it in Ireland just a couple of months before, when I visited with my family. Probably I had that same misty-eyed look when I touched briefly on where we traveled and how I loved it.  And then, the stories were swapped, and a link, like the linked stitches in my warm sweater from the Aran Islands, was woven.  And we laughed and smiled at the good memories that  we had brought forth and shared. It was a good lunch.