As I Was Saying…

Okay, here is what it can be like to be a mom with adult children. I really wasn’t planning to have a case in point for you Amy, when I posted last in comment to your post, but life happens and I think this fits.

Frances is hoping to go to Thailand to help her sister, Lisl, for two or three months. The two of us have worked hard all summer to raise the money for her trip to Thailand. She has enough now. Next we have to find a way for her to go, traveling WITH someone. Elv has decided firmly that she shall not fly alone overseas. The last two statements are a recipe for red tape, seemingly too complicated to cut.

So, Dru finally found  two different couples, Merle and Edith Burkholder flying out of MSP and Bob Miller and wife flying out of JFK. Elv and I trust both of these couples. So we contacted them and got their okay and itineraries and then called Golden Rule to perform the miracle of matching one of them to a seat for Frances. Bob’s flight is for the end of the month, Merle’s for two weeks from now.

Well, it turned out that Bob’s flights were full. But Merle’s flights had a seat costing 1300 dollars, one way.This is what we expect to pay for a round trip ticket. After Frances and I recovered from the shock of that exorbitant price we decided to let Elv decide by morning. Our deadline for Visa work was narrowing down to a 12 hour window. I HATE this sort of thing. It’s stupid and harrowing and worrisome to me. What if the visa doesn’t get back in time? What if the ticket is non-refundable? What if we don’t get her to the airport in time? And besides, what if we can’t come up with a return one-way by the time we want her to come home.? So, I sat at the supper table and couldn’t eat (I ate wheat by accident and was feeling horrid),trying not to lose it by bursting into tears like a teenager  and worry poor Frances who was already tied in knots.

Elv and Frances, with Clark’s help, decided to go for the expensive,one-way ticket. I went to bed with shattered wits and a complete dependency on God who knows better than I do what our children need. Too bad for me that I lose 6 months of our 17-year-old’s life! The sky had fallen in for me and I couldn’t rightly account for it. We had been planning and working for this, but now here it was and I could not figure out why I felt so badly.

I did get some sleep which was an improvement over the night before. In the morning, Dru’s called from Thailand and wanted to know what the ticket was costing anyway. We were planning to call Golden Rule and purchase in about two hours. They encouraged us to not take this ticket but to wait for a cheaper, later time to book. Elv and I took that as our answer to wait.

Praise The Lord! I felt like I was floating because the truck got off my head and heart immediately.

Even Frank’s aftermath has nothing on that truck at all. I am so relieved!! She feels better after talking it out with her dad and Dru and Lisl again. It will still be a pain to find somebody who is planning to fly but hasn’t bought tickets yet, but God knows each person and plan on His globe and we’re going to let Him find a way.

If any of you know someone planning to fly to Thailand, who doesn’t mind a tag-along, anytime from November to January, please let us know as soon as possible. Please, tell those people to call us BEFORE they book. It will be much easier to book two flights than to try to match  one to an already booked flight. How well we know!!

 

Afterward:  This morning which is three days later, we called the GTO office in the US and asked if they had anyone flying to Thailand.  In about five minutes, Frances was added to a list of girls planning to fly in January and returning in March!  Tickets will be purchased some time in November for all of them.

Frances and I both are asking, “So what was that all about?” “If only I had known this three months ago. Think of all the headache I could have avoided.” were Frances’s comments.  I guess it was something we were supposed to work through, because we did learn a lot along the way.