"In case you are not aware of this, you haven't blogged in three days."
She made me laugh out loud.
She has the most amazing way of revealing the depth of her soul and the sweetness of all that makes her who she is.
I am blessed to work at the same company as her so I get to see her on a routine basis. Even if we don't talk I can watch her living her life. I have known her a long time. I am the one who bought her mother the pregnancy test.
I sat up all night as her mother labored and I watch her come into this world red faced and screaming and mad as heck! She was the most beautiful devil baby I have ever known. I wished she was mine so many times.
so many times that eventually she did become mine.
When she was ~6 (ish?) she came to live with me and Grandma at the farm.
It was a sunny day when mother dropped her and her brother at the farm and left. I will never, never be able to get that image out of my soul of those two babes clinging to each other and bawling there eyes out as they crouched in the corner behind the front door.
It took a long time before Little Wolf relaxed and made the farm her home. It must have been so hard for her to have such a seesawing childhood. Her roots grew slow at the farm, almost afraid of laying them down to deep in fear of being yanked up again.
She waffled as the years passed as to what to call me. I was just the renter who was part of the family. She wondered aloud if she should call me sister, mother, Aunt, or just P.
She was not one for words or great displays of affection.
Sometimes I would wonder if she even liked me.
Returning from a coast trip one evening she came in and dropped her duffle bag and took off her shoes and proceeded to shake the sand from them onto the paper I was reading.
"Brought you back a present" she said and gather up her stuff and trudged off to her room.
Oh, dear one you make my heart sing.
There are three presents that I have been given that stand out above all others that I treasure deeply.
your sand is one of those.
She was 12 or13 when I met Corey.
After he proposed I was on cloud nine. But there was one thing that I worried about. One thing that I knew would happen. And there was no way to avoid it.
The farm girls were together when I told them.
"Corey asked me to marry him, and I said yes!"
KSS lite up and was all excited.
I looked at Little Wolf and my soul writhed in agony as I watched her process the information, a fleeting moment of excitement then the realization and the shutting down. Hatches being battened down, drawn bridge closed, the lights turned out. The trust shattered, as I became the latest person to leave her.
It was an awful moment in my life.
To be so happy and so sad all in one instant.
I even asked Grandma if I could take the kids with me when I left the farm. I didn't want to leave them behind.They were my kids. They still are my kids.
No matter where she goes or how old she becomes, she will carry part of me with her. I filled her childhood with camping adventures and dancing in the rain, catching lightning, going on crazy donut runs, laying in the pasture watching meteors and eating donuts with the horses, playing poker and BS., putting hand prints on the truck, falling out my truck, shooting BB guns, horseback riding, Halloween parties, so much laughter, goat fighting and pig tickling and on and on.
But I am so afraid what will stand out the most will be that day she realized I had chosen Corey over her.
She doesn't know that twice, before Corey came along, I had an opportunity to leave the farm. Once I even was packed and had moved stuff to the new place.
But the thought of leaving her made me stay. I choose her. I put my live on hold to be in her life.
She needed me more.
She doesn't need me anymore.
I love that she still puts up with me and talks with me. She is still reserved and walled off....and I still wonder if she even likes me, or just tolerates me. Her roots shallow and ready to pull up at any moment. Her soul still as beautiful as ever. Guarded and graceful and soooooo beautiful.
She is one of the greatest treasures I have had the privilege of collecting in my treasure chest.
Sure make me cry! Of course you have a very special place In my heart. You are my mother, father aunt, and sister. Love forever
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