Saturday, July 14, 2007

Missing My Baby Girl

Okay. So she's not exactly my baby. She turned eighteen, so technically she is an adult.

My beautiful daughter, Nora, has been away for three weeks and has another month to go. I've had a couple of phone calls, which she gets nervous about because the phone's earpiece has earwigs inside of it and makes her all jittery every time she calls. Here she is on the phone in her room. She lost that phone on the plane in Guadalajara or somewhere.
Nora: Hold on. There's a bug poking it's head out. tap tap No. It won't come out.
Me: Why don't you cover the phone with a cloth... a sock or something.
Nora: Wow. Now I feel like an idiot. Hey Katie, my mom says we should cover the phone with a piece of cloth. Why didn't we think of that?

She graduated in June and left a week later for Michoacan Mexico -- actually a little town near the town of La Piedad called Cuitzeo. She is there with Amigos De Las Americas and will volunteer by teaching smaller children art and English and helping organize and educate their youth about environmental issues and causes. These people are extremely poor. They don't have running water and most don't have indoor plumbing. I think her community projects include stove building and tree planting.

I love and miss her so much. I had five other kids here - three were teenagers - to keep me busy, but now that they are gone, I find myself thinking about her all the time. I'm putting together a memory book for her as a surprise when she returns. It will cover her school years all the way up to starting college. It will end with flight info and a pair of tickets to see The Beatles LOVE by Cirque Du Soleil in Las Vegas.

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