Louise and I first met when we both worked at the Vernon Family Resource Center. She worked with the mental health referrals and I was in charge of the Community Lay Counselling Program. We immediately became fast friends. Even though we are very different in some ways, we also tend to see people and the world around us in similar ways. You know these kinds of friends. These are the kindred spirits. The ones you only have to make eye contact with and a multitude of things are communicated without having to say a word. No explanations are needed. You just get each other. it is like you have come home. We quickly discovered we lived right around the corner from each other in a rural community just outside of Vernon. She and her partner had a large property and had many animals including a horse, cat, and rabbits. When they would go away for holidays they would ask our three young sons to take care of the animals, which our little boys just loved doing. So our lives began to shift into...