A Lesson Learned

My senior year started out just like most everyone else's. Groups of kids gathered in front of the school, comparing schedules and summer adventures. I had spent a good deal of the summer with my brother and his family in Colorado Springs, so I had lots to tell.

The fall progressed with Marching Band and and parades and football games and play practice. I loved working on the sets for our fall production in Drama Class. I was in Chorus and Mixed Ensemble. I was active in church and our Youth Choir. We were all looking at college possibilities and I made a decision and was accepted at Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar, Missouri. One of my dearest friends was going to go with me and we were very excited at the thought of going away to college together.

Fall moved to winter and Christmas break. I knew that my Daddy was talking to a church in the Colorado Springs area, and I thought how fun it might be to live there permanently. I loved the mountains and I already knew people there. We drove up to my Grandparents' house for Christmas and my folks flew out to Colorado Springs for Daddy to talk to the pulpit committee and preach in view of a call. It all seemed like a big adventure to me.

Until...the church called Daddy and he accepted the call. And we had to pack up and move at the semester break of my senior year. I was quite torn. What about Southwest Baptist College? What about graduating with my class? What about concerts and basketball games and more plays and assemblies?

What about them? Some dear adult friends went and begged my parents to let me stay with them and finish the year. They promised to supervise me and take good care of me. I'm sure they would have. Secretly, I was hoping that my folks would say it was okay. Outwardly, I was following the party line.

My folks did not agree. You see, they believed that the family unit was more important than the individual child. We were going as a family. Mollianne would adjust and be okay. They were the original 'No Child Left Behind' kind of people.

Our semester wasn't over until mid-January, and I went to school until the last day of the 1st semester. I checked out, turned in my books and walked through the halls one last time. I was no longer a Kennett Indian. Things would go on without me. I was going from a class of about 160 people to a class of 575! Lots of things were going to change for me in a big hurry.

Before I left the building, I snuck into the auditorium and sat in the dark. I tried to remember all the opening assemblies, Homecoming assemblies, MOD assemblies and concerts I'd participated in during my years at KHS. I wanted to drink it all in.

I drove my car home and helped Mother pack. We really had fun packing up things, throwing things away, donating things to the needy in our community. I learned a lot from my Mother about packing and moving (and that came in handy when I married and became a military wife). She told me all about the new house and people she'd met at the new church. We packed the cars, the trailer and the big U-Haul truck. It seems we went to dinner at the home of everyone we knew in Kennett, Missouri. My friends had a surprise going away party for me and all promised to keep in touch. We went to the last Sunday services and to the going away fellowship.

Then, we got in those packed up cars and started driving in a caravan. We drove as far as my Grandparents' house and we spent the night there. The next morning, we headed west. I made a sign and put it in my back window that said, "Pikes Peak or Bust". Driving across Kansas in January was quite an adventure. I was in my car-all alone-for the entire drive. My car was packed to the point that even the front passenger seat was full. I listened to my radio, sang my favorite songs and drove all the way to our new home.

I learned many lessons from my parents as I grew up. One of the most important, I think, was the lesson I learned about family. Occasionally, I wonder what life would have been like for me had they left me to finish my senior year with my class. Would things be different for me now? Would my life have taken a different path? Those questions don't matter, because I didn't stay. I went as a part of my family. To a new home, church, school, state and a whole new life. We went together. And you know what? It was okay. I was lonesome for things back home, but I made new friends. And I have kept up with the old ones all these years.

In the early years of my marriage to an Air Force officer, I watched many families stay behind while Dad went on to a new assignment so the children could finish the school year where they were. We never did. Because of the example set by my parents, my husband and I felt that the family unit was more important than friends or school years or school systems or even church families. There was never a question about staying behind. We moved as a family, every time. No exceptions. My children moved mid-year several times, and always made new friends and settled in to their new classes and church with relative ease.

Recently, there was a chance that my husband would be moving to Florida for a year to work on a contract at Kennedy Space Flight Center. Many, many people were shocked when I said that yes, I was planning on moving with him if they won the contract. I was surprised at my peers who said that there was no way they'd leave their grown up children and grandchildren for a year. I would smile and say that our family is different. Molli sleeps where Ed sleeps was my answer. I'd have missed my daughter and her family, but for me...the family unit-which now consists of Ed and Mollianne- is more important than any one member (or multiple grandchildren) of our extended family.

Yep! I learned many lessons my senior year...none more valuable to me than the lesson my parents taught me by their words and actions about the importance of family.