2022 Monday — Our Only Daughter

She arrived here last Tuesday afternoon; today she returned to her home; our daughter.

The journey is approximately 4 hours and it will take her from Highway 1 here on the coast in Cayucos east to San Luis Obispo where she will enter the 101 Freeway to travel south. She'll drive to Los Angeles where the 101 Freeway will turn east to become the 134 thru Pasadena and then the 210 and then south on the 57 to the 71. It's a lot of numbers but mostly a fairly direct route.

The 3 of us have enjoyed each other immensely. We've walked and we've talked and we've worshipped and prayed, and we've laughed; we've cooked and we've eaten; and slept. And we created memories, lots of them. The strongest of those now is Sunday morning as we all attended church by way of our smartphone connected to our flatscreen, live-streaming. As she stood in our front room to sing with the worship team (who were several hundred miles away at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills), her parrot, sitting on her cage top on the countertop a few feet behind us, also began to whistle and sing and praise God. If it is possible for a bird to sing, her "Doodle" certainly does . . . 20 minutes of spectacular wonder. (Photo of Doodle is in the “extras.”)

Even though she does not return to work until June 1st, the time to get home has arrived.

Autistic children in one specialized classroom at an elementary school is where she is employed as a teacher's assistant. She has been off work, medical leave, since October. She was very very sick. I think she was closer to the edge of death than she realized at the time. We were not in touch with her then; for over 4 years we have not communicated (long story for later). She is nearing the 10 year mark of leaving her one and only marriage of almost 25 years; the penalty for doing that has been severe. She would also express that the freedom has been immense.

From California's Central Coast,
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi too!