The day after Christmas I went to my friends house next door, where that phone call on Christmas Eve with her son had taken place, and simply said, "What in the world happened during that phone call?" She (I'll call her Pam) and I have been close friends for 17 years and Pam has always been my son's other mother so I knew that she would have picked up on anything unusual that day. I didn't tell Pam right away what had happened in our home the night before - I wanted to see if our son had said anything while he had been at their house. Pam began by saying she felt bad about all the chaos that was going on in their home during the phone call. All 5 of their married kids were there along with 16 grand children under the of 14, all wanting to talk to their brother and uncle, so nothing was very calm. She said that when our son went into the bedroom to talk to his friend, "Drew," that she looked at our son and saw something in his eyes that she hadn't seen before but she was more focused on trying to get grand kids out of the room and the chaos settled down so those two boys could have a good visit. She said they talked about 15 minutes and then our son came out into the living room where everyone was. Pam asked our son a few questions about the conversation and that's when she really noticed something was different about our son. She said the look in his eyes wasn't something she had seen before - it was almost like a longing look or missing out on something but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Pam wasn't concerned about our son that day because he was happy he had been able to talk to Drew, they had had a great conversation, and he was looking forward to talking to him again on Mother's Day in a few months.
Pam then looked at me and said, "Why are you asking?" I proceeded to tell her the change I noticed when he came back from her house, the different countenance/demeanor he had over the past 24 hours, and finally his breakdown Christmas night which led to his bombshell announcement of, "I have to go back." (see "Another Phone Call" blog entry on April 18, 2014) As Pam listened to the series of events that had transpired the past two days her face lit up. She was so excited and got emotional. There have been a handful of people close to me that have always felt that our son would return to the mission field someday. Those close to me, including may parents, have known my strong objection to that idea and knew they couldn't talk to me about that very often - if at all. But as I listened to Pam tell me that she and her husband have always believed that he would return I could see that to her, this wasn't a huge surprise and this was something wonderful. She looked like it was Christmas Day - she couldn't contain her excitement. As we talked I assured her that he was just saying thoughts and feelings that he had kept inside but didn't have a concrete plan in place. Besides, he was starting school in just a few days and once he got back into school these thoughts would take a back seat and everything would blow over. Pam is a very wise and spiritual friend and she simply reminded me that the Lord always has different plans than we do and His plans always turn out better. I assured her that it was my turn to have things work out the way I wanted them to.
As the holidays wound down and everyone returned to their normal routines I felt relief knowing that school had begun and my two oldest were now attending the same college. There would be no time now for mission talk. My daughter, who is 17 months younger than our son, sent me a picture on her first day back to school in her new outfit as she did each semester. She then called us the next two nights to report on her classes, how she was going to like them, if there were any cute boys in her classes - the typical college report from a freshman teenager. My husband and I knew our son wasn't going to do any of that - it wasn't his style - but we did expect him to tell us about his classes within the week of school starting. A week went by and we didn't hear from him. We asked our daughter if she had seen him on campus but she reminded us it's a very big campus and she hadn't seen him. When a week had gone by my husband and I decided to call him to see how he was liking school and managing working as well. He told us he had decided at the last minute not to attend school at this point - that it didn't feel right. He said he was going to keep working full time and see what happened next. I wanted to grab the phone and say, "What happens next is you go to school and get on with your life like we were counting on," but I knew I couldn't do that. He wasn't a little boy living in my home anymore. He was an adult living his own life and making his own choices and I had to respect that. He didn't bring up the mission thing so I decided he probably didn't have enough money to go to school so he'd work another semester and start classes in the spring. That option made me sleep better at night.
Pam then looked at me and said, "Why are you asking?" I proceeded to tell her the change I noticed when he came back from her house, the different countenance/demeanor he had over the past 24 hours, and finally his breakdown Christmas night which led to his bombshell announcement of, "I have to go back." (see "Another Phone Call" blog entry on April 18, 2014) As Pam listened to the series of events that had transpired the past two days her face lit up. She was so excited and got emotional. There have been a handful of people close to me that have always felt that our son would return to the mission field someday. Those close to me, including may parents, have known my strong objection to that idea and knew they couldn't talk to me about that very often - if at all. But as I listened to Pam tell me that she and her husband have always believed that he would return I could see that to her, this wasn't a huge surprise and this was something wonderful. She looked like it was Christmas Day - she couldn't contain her excitement. As we talked I assured her that he was just saying thoughts and feelings that he had kept inside but didn't have a concrete plan in place. Besides, he was starting school in just a few days and once he got back into school these thoughts would take a back seat and everything would blow over. Pam is a very wise and spiritual friend and she simply reminded me that the Lord always has different plans than we do and His plans always turn out better. I assured her that it was my turn to have things work out the way I wanted them to.
As the holidays wound down and everyone returned to their normal routines I felt relief knowing that school had begun and my two oldest were now attending the same college. There would be no time now for mission talk. My daughter, who is 17 months younger than our son, sent me a picture on her first day back to school in her new outfit as she did each semester. She then called us the next two nights to report on her classes, how she was going to like them, if there were any cute boys in her classes - the typical college report from a freshman teenager. My husband and I knew our son wasn't going to do any of that - it wasn't his style - but we did expect him to tell us about his classes within the week of school starting. A week went by and we didn't hear from him. We asked our daughter if she had seen him on campus but she reminded us it's a very big campus and she hadn't seen him. When a week had gone by my husband and I decided to call him to see how he was liking school and managing working as well. He told us he had decided at the last minute not to attend school at this point - that it didn't feel right. He said he was going to keep working full time and see what happened next. I wanted to grab the phone and say, "What happens next is you go to school and get on with your life like we were counting on," but I knew I couldn't do that. He wasn't a little boy living in my home anymore. He was an adult living his own life and making his own choices and I had to respect that. He didn't bring up the mission thing so I decided he probably didn't have enough money to go to school so he'd work another semester and start classes in the spring. That option made me sleep better at night.
A few weeks later he and his girlfriend had come out for Sunday dinner and to celebrate a couple of birthdays. His girlfriend was telling us about what he had done for her on Valentines Day. As she was talking about things it dawned on me that they didn't hold hands anymore - that they didn't seem as physically connected to each other as they had before she went home for Christmas and yet they had celebrated Valentines Day together. Then she told us how our son had ordered her favorite foods from a fast food restaurant and brought it back to his apartment where he had set up a fancy table and served her dinner. When she said, "He looked so handsome in his suit" a huge red flag went up in my head. The only suit he owned had been his mission suit and I had sold that at our yard sale that fall - when we, and he, knew that he wasn't going back. Maybe he borrowed a suit from one of his room mates or one of his friends that had returned from their missions. That made more sense to me. That made me feel better inside. As they were getting ready to leave that night my son ran downstairs to go shopping in our storage room leaving his girlfriend upstairs so I asked her who's suit he had borrowed for the Valentine's Day dinner. She looked at me really strange and said, "He bought a new suit a month ago." I wanted to scream, "Why? Why would he buy a suit? Why would he waste his money on a suit that he wasn't going to wear very often?" All these thoughts and questions were screaming inside my head and I was getting very, very afraid.
A couple of days later a huge winter snow storm blasted through the valley just in time for the commute to work. I always worry when I know my husband and son have to drive during those kind of storm - something I got from my mom. My husband knows to call or text me when he gets to work so I won't worry. My son knows I would like a call or text but he usually doesn't. I sent him a text that morning asking if he had gotten to work in one piece. He responded that he was in one piece but had actually slid off the road and a highway patrolman had to pull him out of embankment along with a few other cars. I was thankful he was okay and had been protected that morning and said, 'I guess your time on earth isn't over yet." He texted back and said, "I know I'm being watched over because I know I'm supposed to go back on my mission." He told me he was serious about this and was going to set up an appointment to see his Bishop about it in a couple of weeks. This is where I knew I had the upper hand. My son has never been proactive when it comes to calling someone to make an appointment. When he was working on his mission papers we were constantly nagging him and reminding him of who he needed to call and when. I knew I could count on the fact that he would never get around to making that phone call. Things were going to be okay after all.
And then we were at a Super Bowl party at our friend's house on the other end of the valley. Our son and his girlfriend were there and something wasn't right - he seemed anxious. Our son said he needed to talk to us privately but there were lots of people in the house and everyone was just enjoying the night. And a lot of me didn't want to talk to our son in private. I didn't want anything to change so I made sure we all stayed in the socializing mood the whole night. I was too afraid of what my son might say next. As it got late and it was time to go our son was beginning to get a migraine - something he gets from his dad. He asked his Dad if he would drive his car back to his apartment because he was beginning to lose vision and I would follow them. After we got on the freeway I suddenly realized that my son, his girlfriend, and my husband were all alone in that car...where they could talk. Why hadn't I thought to put a couple of his sisters in the car with them? I was panicked about what they could possibly be talking about for that long. Once we got to his apartment, his girlfriend made sure he got inside his apartment and my husband got in my car and we drove the 20 minutes home. I knew immediately that an important conversation had happened because my husband was smiling. I asked if they had talked and he said, 'Oh yes. We had a great talk. Everything is good. Really good" My husband and I decided Christmas night that we would say nothing to our girls about what their brother was considering. We were not going to bring that up until there were definite plans and answers in place. I was not going to drag them through more heartbreak. So we drove home while the girls talked and I was lost inside my own fears. Once we got the girls into bed and the house quite my husband told me that our son had met with his Bishop that day. His Bishop told him he would do anything and everything to get our son back on his mission as quickly as possible.
The ball was rolling and I was powerless to stop it. My worst fears were coming true. How was I supposed to wrap my head around this? Why - why does he want to go back? How does this process even work? Would my son still want to serve a mission if they called him to North Dakota or Idaho? How would we tell the girls? How would people react to this? As I laid in bed knowing it would be another sleepless night I had no idea how I was supposed to un-do all the healing I had done the past 18 months? There was no guarantee that the second time around would turn out any differently than the first time. I was seized by fear and it was paralyzing.
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