We are gone for the weekend when she calls us with excitement in her voice. I got a job! You gotta what? A job? Really! Where and how and when and why? The Baker’s Nook, she says. Turns out she’s been applying at various coffee shops and bakeries in the region because she needs money. Money for what? we ask, puzzled and perplexed. Well, she says, for shoes and coffee. Of course. What is life without shoes and coffee? An empty abyss, for sure.
She tells us about her new employer. She will be serving up breakfast, brunch, and lunch. She is working with other young ladies, all of Mennonite background it seems, all hard workers, all enthused with coffee and new shoes.
We go to see her one morning for breakfast. She is training hard, watching the girls make sandwiches and omelets; learning to wipe tables effectively, learning to pour coffee efficiently, learning to balance trays without sliding fried eggs into unsuspecting laps. Learning the trade. She sees us and waves shyly, her smile lighting up the kitchen. She points and tells the others, that’s my mom and dad. We meet and greet and she keeps grinning, even while she whips out a rag and starts wiping tables vigorously.
We say goodbye and leave, fighting the urge to weep and wring our hands. Our baby, gone, swept into the world of employers and timecards and paychecks.
At the end of the day she comes home, driving my pickup. I have already anticipated the next great query after the statement I got a job. Sure enough. Dad, I need a car. She knows what color it should be already and then falls in love with the first one we find. That one! I love it. Hold on baby, let’s check out a few more. We discuss her paycheck and the fact that if she wants a car her money will now need to go for more than coffee and shoes. Insurance for a 17-year-old is salty and her joy drifts for a minute before the eternal optimism of youth takes over once again and the smile realigns itself, bright and steady.
And so life goes on, its rapid steady course taking our home’s bright spot into the future that is not ours to dictate or control. We sit in the living room and watch her comings and goings on Life360, we watch the road for her arrival in the evenings, and now she has a job that will provide wings to her growing independence.
In a few weeks she will have her own car. How lucky can a little car be, to go with her everywhere, listen in on those teenage conversations and hear her whispered prayers and dreams. And while she drives and smiles, buys shoes and coffees, we will rejoice with her and won’t let her see the tears as we wave goodbye to childhood gone, never to return.
BF
Ten years ago I wrote a post called A Little Princess Goes to Kindergarten. The bullet train of time has only sped up since then, the waystations of life flashing by all the quicker. Is there any way to slow down this helter-skelter rush?
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