Know No Strangers

Lauren had a large group of ¨friends¨. I use quotes because Lauren called everyone a friend. Sometimes I would hear her tell stories about a best friend and I wouldn't even know who she was talking about. That girl truly knew no strangers. And often times....no names.
This started early on. Ray and I had purchased some undeveloped property in North Florida with plans to build a vacation home one day. We would go there to work the land by trimming trees and other clean up jobs on the weekends here and there. On one such occasion a little boy was riding his bike around the small lake next to our lot. Lauren was about four and the boy looked to be about nine or ten. He paused near us to check out what we were busy doing. Lauren saw her opportunity to make a new friend and didn't even hesitate to approach him. Ray and I looked over to observe our lovely daughter walk right over to this guy, place her hand on his knee and say ¨Hey little boy, wanna play?¨ Oh dear Lord, we thought, we better watch this girl like a hawk. But that was just her way.
Lauren was always terrible with names. We lived in Lakeland before she started school and up until she was in third grade. She attended school where I worked one county over so she was not as close to all of the kids in our neighborhood. She would go out and play for hours and when she returned Ray and I would ask her about her adventures. They rode bikes, played in the yard, jumped on the trampoline and many other fun activities. Who? Lauren and.....she never got their names. She did say that sometimes they called her ¨borin Lauren¨ and it hurt her feelings. Now I wanted names!
I used to worry that Lauren never seemed to have one super close group of friends in high school. Her ¨group¨ changed often. Of course I experienced mother's guilt for moving her from the Jacksonville area back to Brandon after my divorce the summer before she entered ninth grade. I moved her away from the kids she had known since fourth grade.
As I look back now I realize that Lauren just had a huge heart and she had enough love in it for a great amount of people. She could not be limited to only a few friends because she accepted and liked all kinds of people and wanted to know them all. I really admired that about her.