It begins when your children start thinking about colleges. The letters seem to begin arriving about their sophomore year of high school. Inquiries about attending a military academy or in our case, Christian colleges began arriving at our home. Our kids love getting the mail. They look at the brochures and begin thinking about their futures.
As they should.
As a parent, you think it's pretty cool and heady stuff, until of course you begin to think about what an education really costs these days. One thing is for sure, it makes you a praying parent. But then along the way your kids start expressing interest in a school halfway, or ALL THE WAY across the country. It's exciting. It's fascinating. You get excited for them and their hopes and dreams. And then the thought crosses your mind:
"If they go to school 'back there,' will they meet their lifelong mate and WHERE WILL THEY LIVE??"
All of the sudden, visions of seeing your future grandkids once in a blue moon becomes a startling reality. When my brother's kids went to Minneapolis for college from the Seattle area, I thought nothing of it. I actually said, "Good for them" when I heard it. Then one stayed back there for a career and the other one now lives in Alaska where she is likely to remain the rest of her life. My brother has been talking about moving to Arizona. But I'm wondering if my sister-in-law is having second thoughts. Anyway you stack it, the plane ticket is a longer ride and therefore, more expensive.
And yes, when those grandbabies start coming, they are a half-continent away.
It's all about squeezing those grandkids and doing what our parents did to our own children; spoiling them so badly that they are completely useless for three weeks after they go home. I guess that's why having grandchildren is so important. You get to spoil them to get back at your own children for ruining large sections of your peace and solitude.
So important decisions must be made...you must decide what mail is "appropriate" in your home and what mail is not. Anything from a college more than a four hour drive from your home should be carefully placed near a garbage receptacle so that it could possibly be bumped into the can itself. It's really an easy thing to do. Frequently clean your counters so they are always dry, never sticky and always super slick. If static electricity would help make the paper move a little easier, we have the Internet for you to figure out how to make that work. Make sure that a corner of the contraband is hanging off the edge too. Maybe your child will unknowingly do it themselves, knocking it into the garbage. Maybe the moment it falls into the can it would be a good time to dump out last week's leftover gravy on top of the offending literature, just to make sure it doesn't get fished out by some chance. Oh yes, be sure not to use all of the gravy on one letter through; colleges half-way across the country seem to send mail when you least expect it. Heaven forbid your kid should get good grades because those letters will come from farther away, more frequently, and COST A LOT MORE should they want to go Ivy League on you. Perish the thought! I don't know, it just sounds like a good time to triple the batches of gravy being prepared in our home...even if you don't have anything to put the gravy on besides offensive mail from "somewhere else state university."
It's true, important decisions need to be made by families; but isn't that what being a family is all about? The journey, the wonder of those whom you've been given charge over by God are so often a mystery. We don't always know where our kids are headed to, especially during the days that are so trying. But they grow up and have dreams, some of which you've put into them along the way; and off they go on their great Faith Journey Adventure. I don't know where the three we've raised will end up. I have no clue about future grandkids right now. In the end, the most important decision I need to make on behalf of my family is that I will pray for them and let them go. Somewhere along the way they'll find God's will for their lives and the joy that comes from being in the center of His will.
But Lord, I'd sure like it if they did all that stuff close to home!
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