THIRTEEN YEARS AGO
I have a confession to make: I’m terrified of sending the kids out into the real world.
I’ve done it once before, and it was scary then, too.
But it’s worse this time, because I’m carrying the scars from that last time with me.
I’d like to think that maybe I didn’t go wrong with Danny—that maybe it was some outside force, beyond my control, that shaped the man he grew into.
In a way, though, that’s so much worse. To think that there’s nothing I could have done differently.
Nothing I can do to guarantee that this time it goes right.
Damien and Lenore had to grow up a little faster than everyone around them, but they’re still kids.
Still impressionable, and insecure, and uncertain, even when they seem to believe that they’re not.
I want to hold their hands and guide them toward the right decisions, but I feel them slipping through my fingers a little more each day.
Damien got his learner’s permit this year, God help us all.
I’ve told him that he has to save enough money to buy his own car, so for now, he’s driving the station wagon to his job at the ice cream stand.
It’s good for him to have something to occupy his time after he didn’t make junior varsity in the spring.
Another step toward the real world, I suppose, but I feel for him all the same.
It doesn’t matter that he was never going to be an athlete.
It was something he loved doing, and that’s what counts in the end.
Lenore has grown like a weed this past year.
I think she must get that from her mom’s side, but her brother doesn’t seem to have inherited it—they’re right about the same height these days, and both a head taller than me.
Oh, and her artwork! I’ve encouraged her to keep painting, and it’s paid off.
Creative kids don’t always make for creative adults …
So many of us lose a little imagination along the way. Not Lenore. Not yet, anyway.
This year, she entered a painting into the showcase at the county fair.
I’ve entered one of my quilts every year but only rarely place.
She was so excited. I thought maybe the judges would go a little easier in the youth category.
Not so. They pinned a participation ribbon there beside her name on the pegboard.
It broke her heart a little. While Damien ran around the fair with his friends, she sat there on the steps to the fun house with her arms folded on her knees, sulking.
I tried to explain that we can’t always expect to win these things, but that doesn’t make our hard work mean any less.
If everyone worried what other people thought, we’d have no artists left at all.
It was in one ear and out the other, until I mentioned that we should get some funnel cake.
That cheered her right up, and so we got in line, and afterward she played a few carnival games, and rode the Scrambler so many times that she almost got sick.
If you ask me, deep-fried food can mend any heartbreak—assuming you don’t turn around and throw it all back up.