RECONNECTion #4: Rosalyn (Blair) Dion

Curly Roz was the stronghold of the team that summer. With eternally frizzy/curly hair, or frurly, as I call it, her personality was not hidden by her boisterous laugh, but rather personified by it. For me, she was the go-to-girl, the go-to-person really. She could procure the rarest of needs for a Bible study or the most listening of ears for your sorrows. To call her a mother would fall short of what she did, and to call her assistant director, though her official title, would be to dishonor her true abilities. For all of us, and especially for me, the rookie with a lot to learn, she was just Roz.

She was the brains behind schemes like locking people in the back of a moving van and driving them around against their will. But she also thought up displays of unity, like matching shorts and removing doors from hinges. She was both the brains and the heart behind the entire summer.

Rosalyn and I kept up a time or two over the years, the oddest of times being the instance I called her out of the blue to get her address for my wedding invitation. After quick chit chat, she said, “I’m so glad you called, because I need your address, too, to send you my wedding invitation.”

“Great,” I said. “When are you getting married?”

“January 3.”

“Me, too.”

How weirdly special, that Rosalyn and I would get married on the same day, only hours and about 120 miles apart. We agreed not to send each other invitations and to save money on stamps.

Obviously, the high point of her last five years was her marriage to husband David, and the birth of their sun, Canyon. Rosalyn still embodies the sacrificial spirit I met in the summer of 2000. After another summer of camp, she took on big ministerial dreams at her church and now sells real estate in order to spend the most amount of time with her family.

And I still feel that I have to admit the following: That summer, while riding shotgun in Roz’s van en route from Georgia to North Carolina, with everyone trying to sleep, Roz and I sang Celine Dion very loudly. Perhaps the episode left her with such endearing memories that she couldn’t marry anyone but a Dion.

Maybe not, but it was worth a shot.