Hannah Rachel

Well, it is one week away.  On Saturday, December 15th, Hannah Rachel Cardin (HR) will walk down the aisle at Galloway Memorial Methodist Church.  It is not that many steps from the back door of the sanctuary to the front but it has been a journey that has taken 23 years to get to this occasion.  Her father, Tommie, will escort her and take his place between she and her future husband, Conner Smith before speaking the one line that a father is given in a wedding,  "Her mother and I do".

Emily and Hannah Rachel

Hannah Rachel is a dear friend of the Nations family and has been my daughters best friend since sixth grade.  I have watched as Hannah Rachel has grown from an adolescent and into a beautiful young woman.

Somewhere around my daughter, Emily's sixth grade year, she and Hannah Rachel Cardin (HR) became friends.  Best friends.  Both of them could be classified as nerds and oddly enough, that was part of what made their friendship.  Always competitive, they challenged one another in who had the highest grades in one subject or another or who could become President of a certain club or organization.  Emily, more the athlete and loud, Hannah Rachel, more the refined, girls choir type, they have both kept up with one another and supported each other through thick and thin.

Upon graduating from Clinton HS, both girls made their way to Mississippi State with both of them pledging the Chi Omega Sorority.  For their final two years of college, Emily and HR lived under the same roof at the Chi-O sorority house.  Not only were they Chi-O pledge sisters, they were sisters of a deeper kind.

This past June, Emily married Michael Bufkin.  Of course, Hannah Rachel was there.  She was Emily's Maid of Honor.  She executed her duties flawlessly and was just what Emily needed during that hectic and nerve racking time.  On Emily's wedding day (6/2), the countdown had begun and HR stood only six months and two weeks from her own wedding.

Hannah Rachel continues on with her education, attending graduate school at MSU, while her soon to be husband, Conner, attends veterinary school.  As Emily continues her own education, going to medical school, HR has mailed Emily a card of encouragement each and every week.  Now that's a friend.

I can remember many New Year's Eves with HR.  We would always get an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.  HR is a sucker for ice cream cakes.  We would wait for the clock to strike midnight before breaking out our Welch's Sparkling Grape Juice and toasting in the New Year.  Such good memories.

As we approach wedding day, my only advice to Conner is simply this: Take care of Hannah Rachel.  You are getting a really good girl and a wonderful young woman.