One of the terrible things that happened after I took this extended break from blogging was that I missed the opportunity to blog about my feelings as Savannah finished her final year of high school, received her mission call, and headed off to BYU for college. She deserves a lot better from me, and because time has muted my feelings about all of these momentous occasions I am afraid that I won't be able to record exactly how I felt as I watched Savannah make her way into her future.
But I'll do my best.
I'll just take a little time and work my way backwards through the year. For today ... Savannah is in college.
Savannah has always been a super smart cookie. There was never any question that she would be headed to college someday, but it hasn't always been clear. We never have really pushed our kids to go any particular place to college. After all, we did just fine at Missouri State and Drury University. Laney always knew that she wanted to go to BYU. The only question for her was whether she would choose Provo or Idaho. Savannah wasn't always super set on BYU. She really didn't seem to be set on anything. But at some point in the last year or so she decided that BYU Provo was the place for her.
With her above 4.0 GPA and a 35(!) on the ACT there was never any question about whether she would get into the highly competitive university. The only question was how much it was going to cost her. After pretty much putting all of her nuts in one basket and only applying to BYU it was going to be super sad if she didn't get a full ride scholarship since there are a million other colleges who would have easily given her a full ride with her scores and accomplishments. The average test scores for BYU applicants is super high, though, so there was a ton of competition for those scholarships. Nothing was guaranteed. Unfortunately she was going to have to wait until April to know how it turned out.
It was almost the last day before scholarships were announced, and Herman got an email from the BYU scholarship committee saying that Savannah was a finalist for the Thomas S. Monson Scholarship. Hooray! If she received that it would cover all her tuition plus half for four years of schooling. That would be wonderful. They only choose 25 girls and 25 boys from each entering class. Even if she didn't end up receiving that scholarship she would be receiving the full ride scholarship, so suddenly paying for college was going to be taken care of. The next day we found out ... Savannah is a 2015 Thomas S. Monson scholar!!!!! Hooray! We are super proud of her for all that she has done to be worthy of that award.
Now that she was accepted and received her scholarship all that was left was to leave us ... the hardest part.
Savannah is so laid back about life. It seems like Laney took forever getting herself prepared to leave for college, but up to the final weekend before she left it seems as if life was going on for Savannah as it always had. The good thing about that is that I wasn't a basket case thinking about Savannah leaving me. The bad thing was that my emotions just snuck right up on me.
BYU-Provo started a few weeks before BYU-Idaho did, but Laney decided to just come out and hang out with Savannah in Utah while waiting for her apartment to open up. They both loaded up in Herman's Explorer and got ready to leave on Monday morning, August 24th. As they were loading up the truck and preparing to leave I found myself strangely passive about the whole thing. I felt nothing really deeply. I wasn't in tears. I wasn't full of anxiety. I was just going through the motions, helping them in any way that I could. As I sat there examining my emotions I was worried that I wasn't more emotional about it. I thought that maybe I was just an old pro at this having kids leave home thing. Maybe I spent all my anxiety when Laney left two years ago, and now my body just knew what to expect and wasn't having to freak out about it. Maybe I was so used to having a child gone after Laney was gone for 18 months in Chile that I just knew what to expect and used my emotions to just get the things done that needed to get done. Maybe. But I didn't think so. The tears were going to come ... sometime. And, boy howdy!, when they came I knew it was going to be a gully washer. It was not going to be pretty. I don't cry easily. I do cry. I'm not a robot. But it takes a lot to get my tears rolling, and when they do come they just won't quit. The only question for me was when it was when the flood gates were going to open.
It turns out that it wasn't going to take all that long.
The bags were packed. They were ready to go. They were standing there outside our door. (Peter, Paul, and Mary reference ... get it?) Anyway ... right before they left Herman asked Savannah to play one last song for us on the piano. She obliged. And I lost it. Utterly and completely lost it. Savannah playing the piano has been such a part of my life. She always woke up before us. Always. And every morning ... every single morning ... I would hear her in the living room practicing her piano. Even now, months later, I can hear those songs in my head. How to Train Your Dragon, the theme from Up, Scott Joplin ragtime songs, any number of classical songs ... all of them still ring through my head as I think about her playing.
This isn't the song she played, and it isn't even a great example of some of the wonderful songs she played on the piano, but it is the best one I had available, and I do love this song. It is always a pleasure to see Laney and Savannah creating music together. :)
As I sat there and listened to her play (of course she had to choose one of her most melancholy tunes to play!) I just couldn't imagine life without her playing the piano in our home. I couldn't imagine life without her right there. Savannah is so incredibly witty. Our home was full of laughter because of her comments about everything. The girl can quote movies and television shows and obscure books like no one else. No one. How would our home feel without her here every day? I just couldn't imagine it. Even now, two months later after experiencing life without Savannah always at home I still get a bit teary eyed. At that moment as she played I became a blubbering mess. Herman became a blubbering mess. Savannah became a blubbering mess. It wasn't pretty ... but it was poignant. That is love ... caring for someone so much that it hurts to let them go.
But let her go I must.
Savannah can't stay with me forever. She is gifted and talented and wonderful, and the world needs her. She needs the world. She had to leave, and Herman pointed out that the blessing is that the tears we shed at that moment weren't because she was making a horrible choice as she left. They were because she was making a wonderful choice. We have joy in our family, and we want for them to fly off into the future and spread that joy to others. How could I keep that from the world? I couldn't.
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| Last photo before they left me. You can hardly tell that I was a blubbering mess, but if you look closely Savannah and I both have the puffy face down pat. |
So now Savannah is away at BYU Provo in the shadows of the mountains there. I am so happy for all the experiences she is having. She made some super fun class selections for her freshman year ... history of film and television, French and Italian cinema, physics of sound ... stuff like that. She will only be there for a semester until she heads off to her mission in January ... more on that later (like I say, playing catch up blogging here). Thank goodness for the modern conveniences of cell phones and video chatting and quick plane rides. She's not far away, and she is always, always in our hearts.
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