Three days ago my wife and I did a round trip from western Maine to the New York metropolitan area and back. We left home at 6:30 AM, and arrived home at about 8:30 PM. 14 hours, most of which was spent driving, is a long day for anybody, but this trip was worth it. We were picking up our two oldest daughters from college.
Jo (age 21) and Naomi (19) finished their Junior and Sophomore years at Nyack College respectively. Both girls love the school and have made many close friends. To them, Nyack is ‘home’. Neither Sue nor I take this personally, as we both remember feeling the same way when we were in school, which seems a lot more recent than the 30 years it’s been since we were at the University of Maine together. Nonetheless, we are glad to have them back at the place they both called home for the first 18 years of their lives.
The ride home was, predictably, filled with ongoing chatter about: Jo’s 21st birthday on campus, difficult professors, boys, boring professors, the raccoon that greets Jo every morning on her way to her work study job, inspiring professors, friends, and some more about boys. In fact, we have hired two Nyack guys to be counselors at the camp in northern Maine that I will be directing again this summer. When we got home and were talking about the two new college guys who’d be coming to Maine this summer and that they are friends of Naomi, her younger sister, Rose (11), yelled form the other room, “She can’t have them both!” Ah, daughters!
In early June Naomi will be taking a course to become our camp’s archery instructor. After dealing with depression for almost a year now (longer counting the time prior to diagnosis) she is finally in a much better place. Archery will be a good thing to put her energy into, and it benefits the camp that she is willing to get certified.
While Naomi will be working as a senior counselor at Baptist Park, the camp she grew up going to for as long as she can remember, Jo will be leaving later this month for her internship in Uganda. She will be working at an orphanage there with children affected by the AIDS epidemic on the African continent. She will be with us for a total of three weeks before she flies out for Africa.
Until Jo heads across the Atlantic and the rest of us head north, we’re enjoying all being together again. I had no idea how small our house was when we were always a family of five, but now that I’ve gotten use to us being a family of three, the house seems tiny when they’re home. But it is so worth it. We were up much later than usual (Sue and me, not the girls of course) laughing and talking together. I am so incredibly blessed to have the family I have.