Changes

When Gerald talked to Gerry this morning, Gerry and Aidan were on the way to the first of Geri Ann’s three tournament softball games. Gerald asked Gerry what he was doing, and Gerry replied, “I’m explaining the difference between an hour and a second to Aidan.” I am sure Gerry is re-learning how five-year-olds think now that Tara and the three little boys are in Georgia while Bryan is still in Aurora preparing their house for sale and completing the seven exams he has to pass to be a licensed architect in Illinois. Tara is already at work as the new assistant softball coach at the University of Georgia, and Gma Vickie is swamped, I am sure, with the move to a house large enough for two families, which will facilitate her helping with child care.

Gerald misses these three little boys so much himself that he is very sympathetic to Bryan temporarily stuck up north, so he phoned him to commiserate and check to see if there is any chance of catching a ride down for one of Geri Ann’s senior softball games at Oconee High. We have to follow their team by phone calls or by checking newspaper accounts on the Internet.

Maybe all our transitions will be over soon, and family members will settle into their new fall roles and residences. I am unsettled just from watching and vicariously experiencing what everyone is going through with new rental houses, new schools, new jobs, and on and on. I don’t even know the addresses for half of my kids and grandkids right now! (I never like change and rarely like anything new, so no wonder I am unnerved.)

Trent starts college with a calculus class on Monday night and is in the new house in Chatham. Brianna has already begun her junior year in high school there. Elijah is settled into his dorm room at Illinois State University and has his first classes on Monday also. Leslie and fiancé Michael are in Freeport visiting her folks and attending a friend’s wedding and will start their senior year at Belmont next week. I am wondering if they will get to stop at Woodsong on their way back to Nashville.

Probably the most unnerving event will take place on Monday when Erin has to go back to the surgeon and surgery center for a knee-bending procedure. I was pleased to unexpectedly see her other grandmother, Gma Shirley, last night at a women’s social gathering at our village church. We are both waiting to find out what time Erin has to be there for this procedure—and we are praying there is no scar tissue found inside that knee. Meanwhile, today Erin is meeting with the new SIUC softball team and is excited about her upcoming second year as assistant coach there.

Her good friend Toni Whitfield. a grad student, has already moved for this school year into the little house Erin rented last year. That’s appropriate since Toni’s folks were the ones who furnished much of the house last fall with their extra furniture and they serve as Erin’s substitute parents in this area. Toni is one of those multi-talented people— athletic, artistic, and academically gifted. She can sew and do things practical as well; and on top of all that, she is quite beautiful. I hope we again get to see her occasionally now that she and Erin are housemates.

Sam has started high school and is already busy with all that entails. His mother says there has already been plenty of homework. (I though maybe all the summer academic work he was assigned would make this semester easier. I guess it does not work that way.) But I think Sam likes the challenge. I feel a little awed when I pass his old grade school and the junior high and realize that he has already moved on to bigger things and I don’t need to read the announcements on the schools’ public bulletin boards. He is contemplating that driver’s license that will eliminate the need for me is his life, and that is as it should be. But my contemplation of where has time gone is also understandable and as it should be.