Connecting the Dots

My senior year at the University of Georgia, I shared a two-story apartment with three uniquely different girls:

— My friend Ellen Apple who always had a great sense of humor, and a boyfriend.

— Lisa, my rowing teammate, whose last name I’ve forgotten but whose favorite snack I never will: a bowl of canned pears topped with marshmallows and raisins drizzled with chocolate syrup.

— And, Ana Luiza Bonfante, a girl from Rio de Janeiro with bouncy curls and a bright smile.

First photo, graduation; second photo, Ellen, me and Ana Luiza; third photo, Grandmommy aka Dot

We lived side by side, sharing a kitchen, a clothing item or two and a few daily laughs.

Then came graduation day. Our families gathered in the Georgia heat, proud and film camera-ready. I hugged Ellen’s family, whom I’d known since my sophomore year, and met Ana Luiza’s family for the first time. Her aunt, a wedding cake baker from Rio de Janeiro, had flown in from Brazil.

This wasn’t her first time in the United States, she said — she’d once visited a place called St. Simons.

St. Simons Island… could it be? I thought.

Where my grandfather Pap had been a Methodist minister?

And my grandmother, Grandmommy, played piano at Lovely Lane Chapel and sang in the choir at the “big church?”

Where weeping willows wept and bunnies hopped?

Where we yelled “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh?” as we crossed the “singing bridge”

Where Fourth of July meant swim meets and fireworks on the beach?

Where I spent high school spring breaks and met my first crush?

St. Simons Island, on the Georgia coast? I asked, stunned.

The very same, she confirmed.

She’d been there through Christian missionary work and stayed with a couple who lived on the island.

I asked, half-knowing it was a long shot:

What were their names?

Elia and Bill Harrell, she said.

My heart skipped.

The Harrells lived across the street from Grandmommy — Dorothy Johnson, or Dot to most — and were her closest friends on Ingham Street.

Did you know Dot? I asked.

She nodded with a smile.

That day, I wasn’t just wearing a cap and gown — I was waking up to the mysterious interconnectivity of life.

The Brazilian aunt of a Brazilian girl I barely knew was a cosmic wink from the universe to remind me that I was already a part of something so much bigger.

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