Letters, Lines, and Lyrics by Linda

If anybody still checks my blog, I want to let you know that I have a new blogspot.  It seems easier for me to get into and easier therefore to update.  Please come and check it out.  I will likely not update this one any longer.  My new blog spot is  http://letterslinesandlyricsfromlinda.blogspot.com/  I hope you can access it.  Let me know when you find me okay?  Take care. Linda

Well, it's two months later and she is still unhappy at college and I am still doing the "right thing" and making her stay there against her will.  I hate this part of parenting.  Sometimes I think she just lays on the guilt hoping to make me give in and let her quit.  Sometimes I fear she really does hate me for making her be there.  Sometimes I even start doubting myself and wondering if it is the right thing and if I am really right.  The only concession we've made is to tell her she can transfer to a college closer to home this summer if she can find a comparable financial package at one.  But she can't transfer until summer.  Maybe by then she will like where she is.  If not, at least she won't have lost the money spent this year and the money awarded there.  I still feel there are big benefits to where she is though.  Like the study abroad program, but if she can't stand to be this far from home, she wouldn't be able to go abroad anyway.  And the language programs there are the best around, but I guess she is willing to give that up.  She is very sad because she had only dreamed of this college for two years and only applied at this college and now her dream has fallen apart in her overwhelming unhappiness.  She who was so enthralled with the very town itself now can't even stand being in the town.  Her unhappiness has colored her whole world black.  So as part of her "therapy" I tell her to make a list of her blessings and things she is thankful for.  In church this morning the pastor challenged all of us to do the same thing.  We have so MUCH to be thankful for!

I am thankful my nephew finally got home from Iraq and my sister is in NY to see him this week.  I am thankful my family is healthy.  I am thankful my stepson came out from Colorado to help his dad finish our field work.  I am thankful for all 3 of my kids.  I am thankful for God's love and grace and forgiveness.  I am thankful the roads were only wet and not icy when I had to drive on them this weekend, even though snow was falling.  I'm thankful my daughter and I got to spend the weekend together and had a good time as usual.  I'm thankful for a warm house and for all these clothes that forever need laundering.  I'm thankful for a job even though it is busy and stressful, it pays the bills and has other rewards too.  I'm thankful for good friends who care.  I'm thankful I got to see my brother this weekend.  I'm thankful my husband isn't taking his long fishing trip this fall and will be home with me on the farm.  (I hate being alone here at night. I'm such a wuss.)  I'm thankful my daughter can go to an expensive private college even if she doesn't see it as a blessing right now.  I'm thankful for my little blue car that gets me where I need to go and lots of places I just want to go.  I'm thankful the price of gas has come down.  I'm thankful for the Lord's protection and providence.  I'm thankful I never go hungry, although I probably should long enough to lose some weight.  I'm thankful the snow that fell this weekend is pretty much all melted off.  I'm thankful for the right to vote in an election even if my candidate doesn't win.  I'm thankful for the right to worship in peace without fear of being persecuted or killed for it.  I'm thankful for God's Word the Bible and the comfort and guidance it gives me.  I'm thankful for the beautiful colors of fall and the wonderful smells and tastes that go with it.  Pumpkin pie, apple cider, caramel corn, cinnamon, yum!  Thank you God for all the blessings you bountifully bless us with.  Go ahead, friends, make a list of your blessings.  What do you have to be thankful for?

    Why does it hurt so much to do the right thing?  On August 23, 2008 we took my only daughter, and my youngest child to college.  We helped her unpack and make her bed.  We shared a root beer float and then we hugged her and told her goodbye.  She was crying and I was trying so hard not to.  All the way home I talked to her through text messages.  Before we had even gotten home, her only pair of shoes had lost it's sole.  (I felt like I'd lost my soul.)  The next morning she was crying and missing home and I was crying because she was crying.  I KNOW she is where she should be.  I KNOW it is God's will she be there.  I KNOW she will make a wonderful teacher or whatever she decides to become.  I KNOW that is the best college for her.  I KNOW God worked it out so that almost $30,000 of the $32,000 yearly fee was covered by scholarships and grants she doesn't have to pay back.  BUT why couldn't my daughter have stayed my little girl just a little longer?  Oh, I know, there are parents with special needs children who wish their children could grow up and leave home to go to college.  And I do appreciate that she is not just "normal" but above normal and will be a major success at whatever she chooses to do.  I thank God for this opportunity He has given her.  I thank Him for the wonderful daughter He has allowed me to enjoy for the last 18 years.  I know this is not forever; she will be home for visits and summers too.  I kick myself and remember how we had the option of keeping her in preschool one more year, but we thought she was ready to go to kindergarten.  Had we held her back, I'd have one more year of her in high school and at home.  But it is too late and too futile to second guess ourselves now.  She did grow up and did graduate and now she must move on to the next chapter in her life. 
   So every day she and I email and text and call each other.  And every day I send her mail.  And I tell myself she really isn't all that far away and it really won't be that long until I see her again.  Then she came home for the weekend.  It was a 3-day weekend for Labor Day.  Her friends were all going on a retreat and she didn't want to be alone in the dorm.  So she came home.  It was so good to see her on Friday afternoon.  But Friday evening and off and on all day Saturday she'd cry.  She would look at me and cry.  She'd say, "I don't want to go back.  I don't like it there.  I don't feel like I fit in there.  I want to come home.  I want to go to community college near home."  And she'd cry.  And I'd say, "But you have to go back.  It's where you are supposed to be.  It's where God wants you.  It's paid for."  And inside my heart was breaking.  Why do I have to keep doing the right thing? the mom thing?  Why can't I say it is okay, darling, you can stay home with mom forever?  Did you ever read the story of the butterfly trying to escape its cocoon?  How somebody saw it struggling to get out and slit the cocoon and let it out and forever it was swollen and couldn't fly?  That a butterfly MUST struggle and get out on its own for that is how the fluid is drained from its body and its wings are strengthened so it can fly and reach its full potential.  So I must let her struggle and I must make her fly or she will be forever doomed.  She thinks she is the only one hurting.  She thinks I don't care or understand.  She is so totally wrong.  It is much harder than giving birth to her was.  I hugged her as she wept by her car and then I went back in the house.  I sat on the steps in the garage and I sobbed and wailed (the Irish blood in me keened) as I saw her car drive out the drive and turn up the gravel road away from home.  I know she was crying too.  I felt her pain too, on top of my own pain.  I don't want her to leave, any more than she wants to leave, but if she doesn't she will be stunted for life.  So I do the right thing and push her out of the nest one more time, no matter how much it hurts.  I hope one day she understands and knows just how very much I do love her.  But God, why does it hurt so much to do the right thing?

Today was not particularly a very good day.  This spring when the horse lost her winter coat, she was skin and bones.  And no matter what we tried, it didn't get any better.  She choked and got thinner and thinner.  She was on grass and hay and senior pellets and then we added alfalfa cubes and had the vet out.  He said she  was living on borrowed time as she was 26 years old.  He also said she was getting emphysema and had bad teeth and etc.  He recommended putting her down.  Well after several weeks of crying and trying other things, today she was taken away.  She was a good horse and a pretty horse and she lived a long good life.  She was a registered quarter horse and had been a brood mare for many years.  It hurt to let her go, but it also hurt to see her standing in the pasture drooling and her ribs sticking out.  I want to hear her whinny and rub her nose one more time.  But I was at work when she left.  All my life, I wanted a horse and so I lived vicariously through my daughter having a horse of her own.  I wanted to let her die of old age, but then I didn't want to see her die a slow painful death either.  Sometimes it is selfish to keep someone or something alive because we can't bear to part with it.  We are putting our own needs and wants ahead of what is best for them.  I am very proud of my daughter for being able to make this decision and put Five's needs first.  I would likely not have been that strong or mature or brave.  I will think of Five in Heaven, young and vibrant and racing across a field with her mane and tail flowing in the wind.  If God put animals here on earth for us to love and get so attached to, I believe He will have them in Heaven too.  Otherwise it would be cruel to us and to them. 

Hello again,  Can you believe I'm back again so soon?  Well, I am back to work at school fulltime, but the joys of summer continue as well.  Tuesday this week, we went to the Iowa State Fair.  Have you ever been?  It's truly an experience; one I had almost every year growing up and have continued with my own family as often as I can.  As I told you before, my daughter had 3 projects go to the fair this year.  So we had to go see them there.  We  rode down on  a charter bus with 50 other people from our town.  Her Russian black bread got a blue ribbon, and her painting of a waterfall got a blue ribbon and her quilt was a legacy project so it got a special certificate.  It was raining when we got to the fair, so we figured out how to walk most of the way across the fairgrounds going from one building to the next with only small spaces between buildings to get wet.  We still got wet, but it was fun anyway.
   And now the summer fun continues.  I am talking about canning vegetables of course.  3 weeks or so ago I went to the produce auction to buy tomatoes to can and they were going for $50 per box.  I thought not.  So this week I went back and this time I got 4 boxes (100 lbs.) of tomatoes for $6 per box. I also got 4 boxes of green peppers for $3 per box and 2 boxes of onions for $5 per box.  So I spent $50 on vegetables and am turning them into tomato relish (like stewed tomatoes) and canning them.  So far I have canned 28 quarts and have another 50 pounds of tomatoes peeled and ready to process tomorrow.  While I am at work, my darling daughter is cutting corn for me so I can come home and bag and freeze it.  So far we have frozen 33 quarts of corn.  Not bad huh? 
   A week from tomorrow my dear daughter heads off to college.  What a change that will be in our house!  She and I are joined at the hip and have been for 18 years.  So a big chunk of my heart will go along with her to college.  I got her a texting plan and she got herself a new red shiny little cell phone that plays music, so she can keep in close touch with me.  We got webcams for our computers too so we can see each other long distance.  And of course I will visit her often.  I am so happy for her and so proud of her, but she will be missed as well. 
   Hope you are enjoying your last days of summer as well.  Are you watching the Olympics?  Go USA!!!