Kid # 4 is Launched

by

Patti Dickinson

Friday, late morning, our family made the six hour trek to Galesburg, Illinois, to attend Kathleen's graduation from Knox.  A button-popping moment for her mom and dad.  This is a kid who personifies joie de vivre (brushing off my high school French here), owns a moral compass that points due north and has just been a great kid always.  Well, just about.

Oh, she's had her share of missteps.  When she was five, she was out in the backyard with her sister, Claire, who is eleven months older than she is.  They were playing out in the woodpile. Kathleen picked up a log, looked at Claire and said, "Duck", then pitched the log right at Claire.  Claire, instead of "duck", the verb, (as in flinching and with haste, move in a different direction) said, "Where?'  thinking it was "duck" the noun (a web-footed bird with an orange beak) and got hit right smack in the middle of the forehead.  Kathleen, horrified, came running to the back door, Claire (still seeing stars and now with an ugly welt in the northern half of her face) in tow.  

Graduation was memorable.  It was held in the courtyard of Old Main, under a threatening sky.  Right after the keynote speaker took the stage, the sky opened up and it poured.  Fortunately for the Dickinson family, the mom, ever the pro-active genius, insisted that we stop at Target the day before to buy three umbrellas that we could share in the event of a bad-outcome weather-size, amidst the groans of all the other Dickinson's who thought the whole stop to be totally unnecessary and even a bit annoying. I did some shameless smirking as I handed out the umbrellas as we got pelted with rain, making each kid look me in the eye before putting the umbrella in their outstretched palm with a decided thwack as it made contact in the hand-off. (About five percent of the audience had umbrellas....it would have been a terrific and highly lucrative money-maker had I thought ahead....)

After the ceremony, there was a picnic lunch.  I was having a very hard time swallowing the sandwich.  This had nothing to do with the overdone beef, and more to do with the lump in my throat.  This year, we wouldn't be driving Kathleen home with us for the summer.  This year, Kathleen was moving to Chicago. She will be putting her technical theatre degree to good use, working at The Vitalist Theatre.  A wonderful internship that was a result of four years of hard work. She is lucky to have snagged that job in this dismal economy.  

Both Wood and I wrote her a note (we have been writing the kids notes for years.....to celebrate privately and in words that they will have forever, celebrations, disappointments, accomplishments and defeats) and I told her that the porch light is always on.  Ultimately, that is the biggest gift for both of us. To be blessed with her visit and to know that home, home will always be where her story began. 

Break a leg, Kathleen!