MY LAST DAUGHTER POST...HAPPY DAUGHTER'S WEEK



Leah's Glamor Shot



     We are still in Arabia. 

Leah visited more often than most. We were able to negotiate visa's.  I was able to come home every six months which was unusual.  Her last visit was on her 21st birthday.  We had a large and impressive party for her.  Gifts (as is the ARAMCO custom) were expensive by my standards and many.   Receiving a telephone call was a big deal in the eighties in Arabia.  Her father called right in the middle of the party.   He was able to tell Leah Happy 21st.  She was given a beautiful large aquamarine ring.  It is her favorite.  I have tried over the years to get her to  let me wear it, since she doesn't,  very often.  I keep trying without luck.

    It was on this visit that the photographer friend of mine made what now is called glamor shots of us.  The photographs were so good.   

    As a birthday present, I handed in my resignation on August 20th and started to make preparations to come home.  Tuition was paid through her college year's.  I was on my way home.  I didn't  leave until October as it takes a long time to get out of country.  Not the usual thirty day resignation. The Saudi government held my passport and my exit. was dependent on what they wanted to do.  We both wanted me home quicker. 

     By Christmas, I had a small condo in Durham, NC.  We put things carefully in to each place.  Came time to get a Tree.  Since we were late getting decorated, the day before Christmas we started out to find our tree.  The living room had a 20 foot ceiling.  We pulled into a nursery that looked like it had a tall tree.  We bought a huge tree for almost nothing.  I was in a panic to figure out how I was going to get it up.  Well, Leah had no trouble in talking the young man at the nursery into coming and putting it up for us.  This story reminds me of another tree story.  When were were in St. Louis and moved from our house to an apartment, we had a fun tree experience..  Christmas came and we went to the tree farm and picked out our special tree.  The put the netting over it so when we got home it went up the elevator and into the apartment with no trouble.  We took off the net and let it spread its beautiful limbs.  It was beautiful.  Well Christmas was over and the tree was needing to go.  Turns out it was so big that we couldn't get it through a single door.   Not to be one to give up, we cut each limb using bandage scissors (the only think I could find).  It took a long time to trim down the limbs, fill the black bags.  Then we were able to get the tree through our french doors to the balcony and lower it with a rope down to the ground....and to the trash. Whewwww that was a hard job. 

The next few months found  me looking for a job and Leah doing the same.  She decided to go to Pinehurst and look.  She was so lucky in that she found a job with a builder that taught her so much.  She found a beginner apartment and made it look like a palace.  We both went on our way to our new adventures .  She was indeed a woman and a wonderful one.  This was the beginning of her adulthood and on to marriage and parenthood. 

Leah, thanks for being my daughter. 

Thanks for welcoming me into your life, all of your life, but especially as I grow older. 

Thanks for sharing with me my grandson. You were happy for me to share my values, my thoughts, and my time him. All grandparents are not as lucky.

Thanks for yelling at me when I am not doing for myself what I can. You do it with love.

Thanks for making your education worth all the time and money.Especially because you love what you do.

Thanks for the meals you bring to me and I don't expect.  Sharing your special preparations.

Thanks for sharing excitement about little things.  Birds, Iris, and a shared lunch on the beach.

Thanks for your positiveness.  You bring a wonderful sense of possibility to the entire family.

Thanks for having enough faith in me to encourage me in my life. I want to live up to your belief in me.

Thanks for the cards and little books you give me telling me you care. So simple, but so important.

Thanks for understanding who I was, I am and who I may become.

Thanks for just being you!