As all of us are preparing for big holiday season, I remind everyone that LD children always give us the biggest surprises. During the November Thanksgiving Holiday my husband and I wanted to have a quiet family vacation. My daughter is in college and we never get to travel with her. My mistake not to remember that when I was 19 there was a reason I never came home, parents! I didn’t want to be with my parents! What made me think I was in a new millennium and maybe, just maybe my daughter would be different. Sincerely, nothing ever changes. I’m not going to say we had a bad time but it could have been better. We had come to the conclusion that we would travel when she was in school so that we wouldn’t have to worry about where she was.
Upon coming home and bringing her back to school, I thought it was odd that she was bringing more of her clothes back than normal. No problem, we would bring back the summer clothes. We left very amicably.
On December 2nd I received a call from a very close friend, her daughter is close to my daughter. She told me that she was so sorry she had to make this call but her daughter was texted by mine that she was going to get married and low and behold, today she went and eloped. I’m not sure why I was not surprised. My husband and myself have met this young man and he was very nice. Yes he is in the Armed Forces which is next to my daughter’s college. I told her not to worry I would find out what was going on and get back to her. I called my daughter and she did not want to take my call, well I called her “Mrs”, nothing on the phone. I poured my husband a stiff bourbon and as he walked in the phone rang. We put my daughter on speaker phone and confronted her. Yes she eloped and was afraid to tell us. She got married because her husband was moving out and did not want to leave her. She promised that college was her high priority and she would transfer into a local college when they got settled at the destination the service sent him. She would do on line schooling until this happened. She was finishing her semester now and packing. Okay, shock, and this was not what we wanted for our 19 year old daughter. Okay, what do you do? She is legal age. She is being taken care of by the US Military, full medical, dental, medications, housing and school. I guess we couldn’t complain, but this was our baby. Did her new husband understand her disability? Does he understand that you need a therapist, does he know that you take medications? Yes, he got on the phone and knew all the gory details. He wanted her to be with him so he could take care of her. Really???? How did this happen? Nothing we could do, she’s legal age in our state to get married. Okay I have a son-n-law, we need to have a family pow wow. The shock was unbelievable. We were not angry at her eloping, we were worried. Is she going to be okay? How will she cope? Well after a lot of crying, concern we can to the conclusion this is not our journey anymore. My daughter had made the decision to take her journey on her own now. No more parents to influence what was going, but spreading her wings and taking the plunge. Well we all have to do it, we would have liked it to be when she finished college, but not our life or decision. The important issues are being addressed and she will have be aware of them. So on this holiday and at the end of the 2015 year, my daughter has started her new journey. My wish for her is to be cautious, think of others and work together. Wow, my daughter is married and on a journey!