Anyone Up for a Game of Scrabble?

April 13 is National Scrabble Day.

I think there’s at least one or more “holiday” for every day in the year. Don’t even get me started on the weekly observances, the monthly commemorations. The lists are endless. The silly things people want to “celebrate” boggles my mind.

Scrabble (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But Scrabble?

That’s different.

Scrabble was my portal into the world of words. My Grandparents owned that mystical box with the beautiful wooden tiles, letters pressed into them with the a tiny number in the bottom right hand corner. The colored squares in a radiating design mesmerized my very young mind.

Then to watch words form, seeing the connections and intersections of the words, helped me see the patterns and understand the different sounds and connections of letters. Two letter words beyond if, or, it, of? Wow! And then bigger words appeared that I’d never heard and wanted to know and use.

I wanted to play. I wanted to play and score high points. I wanted more words in my life.

Scrabble (Photo credit: williamhartz)

I didn’t get to play often as we didn’t own a Scrabble board at my house. But when I got the chance, I was in all the way.

Then a few years ago, in a serendipitous reconnection with a cousin I’d lost touch with for decades, I found Scrabble again. It became our medium for rebuilding a relationship. Those little chats we had as we each played a word or two over the internet were really parts of a bridge. Sure the game is fun and builds my vocabulary, but the real score was a solid friendship, a supportive two-way road between two family members, two almost-sisters.

Now we text, email, Facebook, call, and even travel across a mountain range to visit in person. Thanks to a simple game of letters we are now the cousins and friends we started out to be.

So yes, today I celebrate the game of Scrabble!

I hit a lifetime bingo high, with a triple letter score included, simply by playing the word R-E-L-A-T-I-V-E.

What it really spells is F-R-I-E-N-D.

Am I lucky, or what?