Ten years ago I thought I had lived through the hardest day of my life. Today at least tied.
The Girl left Pedro Bay this afternoon at 2:30. The plane came 30 minutes early. We raced to finish packing and loaded the truck. We beat the air taxi by a few minutes and so we made a few hurried pictures. The tears surely did flow and hugs were long.
Where is she going? She will attend Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, AK. It's a state-run boarding school in the southeast part of the state. If you've taken an Alaskan cruise, you have probably been to Sitka. It is a beautiful place.
The school has about 400 students and is well-known for its academics. The Girl is looking forward to studying Chinese and hopes to be able to participate in the foriegn exchange program. The girl's basketball team won the 3A state championship last year.
Today has brought a lot of changes to our lives. Even now, after talking with her three times since she arrived in Anchorage, I know she is growing up by leaps and bounds. Not many 14-year-olds can fly by themselves out of the village, meet complete strangers and then check-in and go through security before boarding their chartered flight. (Heavens, security scares our whole family and we figured out that at least me and the Mister have flown about 40 flights in the three years since we left Oklahoma!)
I am so proud of her.
The last time I called her was on Skype --- just happened to see that she was online. She was in the baggage area of the airport in Anchorage. She said she was bored. She was getting up her nerve to check-in and go upstairs.
The Boy's take on all of this has been that he is now an only child. He thinks this is going to be great - no big sister. No one that he has to share the playstation with! We think he's going to miss her a great deal. When I was somewhere around the age of high school --- college, my younger brother informed me that I had had the privilege of having the company of my parents while they were young. He on the other hand would enjoy them when they had money.
The Boy is getiing neither.
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