Missionary Blues

We took Daughter #1 to the Missionary Training Center yesterday at 1100 hours.

I cried myself to sleep on Tuesday night and woke up feeling waterlogged and swollen. I made it through the breakfast buffet at the Grand America 4* hotel (ooooooo!) and the drive to Provo, and the dropping off of the bag, but as soon as we sat down in the chapel at the MTC and they started showing those 'spend time with your family' commercials, I was struggling to keep the lump down and the tears in. In the end, we all cried but we walked away, too. Now she is off on her great adventure.

Which is, I'm thinking, the biggest problem for me.

RoseE has been more than just a daughter to me. For the past 23 years, we have shared 2 relationships: mother-daughter and friends, We have shared every book and adventure (sometimes second hand, in the telling) with each other. Even when she went to college, and then later worked at the French Language Camp, I shared in the adventure, because I have been to both of those in her same capacity. We share the same two languages.

But this is an adventure that I cannot share. I have never been on a mission, and I will never be able to learn Korean anywhere near as well as she will. I am left behind, for the first time in our friendship.

I think this is the main reason that I feel like I am losing her.

I know she will be an extraordinary missionary. I know she will love the Korean people, and they will love her. I know she will be a different person when she returns.

I'm trying not to whine or beg or cry. I didn't whine or beg yesterday. I won't whine in letters to her. Just here, will I whine. So don't tell, OK?

I'm hoping I will feel better when letters start arriving. Which means I have to write some. I've started putting together a care package: index cards, mechanical pencil, mint Milanos . . . Symphony bars . . . chocolate chip cookies . . . . .