An Invitation from Lucy – A Visit to My College Girl

People have asked for an update on Lucy. And now is a good time because I just finally got an actual invite to visit my college girl.

Yes, she invited me. And we should probably back up so I can explain how special this invitation was.

We have hardly seen Lucy since she started college

Ok, we did see her a handful of times.

Labor Day

I mean, Claire went and got her for our Utah Labor Day celebration. And it was SO good to see her. Like salve to my initial motherhood worry shortly after leaving her at college.

Medicine Drop-Off

I asked her if she wanted my sister and I to give her a quick hug en route to Bear Lake for my other sister’s 50th birthday celebration. That’s when she asked me if I even knew what it meant to be independent. Ha! Everyone knows your parents don’t visit you if you’re independent, right? BUT, since she needed a medicine drop-off, she did allow my sister and I to stop in really quick:

And we did get some good hugs.

Lucy’s Birthday

I talked about her birthday, letting go and letting my kids take care of that girl. Claire even had a pre-birthday sleepover with her. Which honestly melted my mama heart.

Because she didn’t want her parents messing up her independence, of course.

Newport for Fall Break

We DID get that girl in Newport for a short stint. Mostly because Elle & Carson and Grace were going to be there. Ha! She loves those sisters so much! We were SO GRATEFUL to get some eyes on her to make sure she was ok.

Transportation Troubles

It is really, really difficult to figure out how to help her maneuver from her college campus to the airport or even down to visit siblings in Utah (on her birthday). But she is really figuring things out. And there are so many angels who have offered to help. She’s patient with the process. She is lonely, but willing to put in the work. Grace went and picked her up for this Newport trip, bless her heart.

My friend and I drove her back up from the airport after Newport (we were meeting up for a little girl get-away) and got to hug her up just a bit there as well. This is her “second mom” so it was fun to give her some extra love together.

Note that her beloved birthday streamers were still up on her door…she sure loves that stuff!

We went up to Utah for Claire’s half marathon. At first Lucy actually asked if she was going to see us. Dave and I looked at each other with wide eyes and got excited. Of course we’ll come visit!” we told her. But then on second thought she figured she’d better stay “independent strong.”

A Cousin Visit

We couldn’t visit her, but when my sister-in-law asked if Lucy might like a surprise visit from cousins, I figured she’d love it. But then second-guessed. Did this independence mean she didn’t want ANY visits? They went ahead and surprised her, and I’ll let the pictures tell the story:

Yes, it’s safe to say she was pretty delighted with that surprise.

FaceTime Calls

As much as we have hardly seen Lucy in person, we do hear from her. She calls quite often just to shoot the breeze. She FaceTime calls to have me help her figure out which buttons to push for the washer and dryer. How to turn on the oven. If the food in her fridge has gone bad.

She also texts regularly in our group family text.

She sent a video in our family group text that I’m going to let Elle explain:

These are just outtakes from that video, but it was honestly such a special video. To all of us. Because that girl finally found her fall leaves!!

I LOVE that you could see her shadow in part of the video (first pic. above). You can’t hear the whooping and hollering joy from the video in those picture-outtakes…I’ll have to post that one on instagram.

I love what brings that girl so much joy.

Also, through FaceTime I get little snippets into life. Most exciting lately was a late-night call about how she got invited to a Halloween party. AND a hike. Pictures and explanation at the end of this Halloween post.

It’s so amazing what an invite can do for a girl who is quite lonely at college.

Ok, so all that just as an introduction so I can always remember what a big deal this invite was.

Lucy’s Invitation

Here’s how she invited me to come up:

HAHA!! Dave and I had a good laugh about that last part. I mean, I didn’t know how else to tell him he wasn’t invited than to just let him know. But you can’t blame a girl for just wanting some mom time here and there. And this mom was pretty delighted.

And I wasn’t about to turn that invitation down.

A Trip to Visit My College Girl

The two of us headed up to Utah.

Claire was glowing when she picked Dave and I up at the SLC airport. Life is good for that girl right now nearing the end of a really hard but really rewarding semester.

She dropped me off to grab a car from my parents and she and Dave headed to Provo to hang with the Provo kids: dinner all together and Claire’s soccer game.

I made the drive up to Logan to Lucy’s welcoming hug, finally ready for a visit from her mother, her dorm all clean, hair washed, my painting waiting for us to hang up.

We took three of her roommates (the ones who were available) to dinner with us and talk, talk, talked. It was salve to my mama heart to have the chance to spend time with them and get to know them better.

…and also to get to know some other acquaintances around her dorm.

Back at Lucy’s dorm I sat on the floor behind her desk and read her two articles she had to annotate…all about how to read for understanding and also attachment styles.

Gosh college is fascinating. And honestly I still don’t know how you “annotate” when you really cannot see. We took an assessment of her dorm to try to figure out how to get things situated.

We whipped up cookies together until late, late.

Because of course that was a must.

I think the wrong Bosche beater got put with the one she is borrowing from Bear Lake, necessitating a LOT of that loud whirring sound over and over again as we tried to get that dough all mixed.

But we did it!

And I want to always remember sitting at the little booth in her commons room talking as we ate our warm spice cookies nearing 1:00am.

I crashed at my little hotel after that, and loved seeing this temple where my parents got married all those years ago all lit up en route.

The next day we hit everything we could.

We did laundry, washed her sheets, went to Einsteins (her favorite second only to Firehouse Subs)…

…got some groceries and organizational stuff at Walmart, figured out a mini freezer she could buy on Amazon (her communal freezer is like a giant pit and there’s no way she can find anything in there).

She was pretty excited about all that organization. Can you see under her bed? She was in love with that situation.

I insisted we go to the cafeteria for an early dinner, sure I could find some really yummy stuff she had perhaps been missing.

But to be honest, cafeteria food isn’t all that great. Ha! Loved being together though!

I love that Lucy didn’t want to let me go at the end.

But I had to get back to help Dave babysit Murphy and Ada so Max and Abby could have a late-night date to the football game. And I’d be back up for her piano recital in a couple days.

Goodbye Lucy, for a minute!

Back for the Piano Recital

Lucy not only invited me to her piano recital, but the whole family. In the end, I was the only one who could make it, so I stayed an extra day to be there.

And I’m SO glad I did. Because honestly I don’t know how she would have gotten across that campus without me. Oh, she’s got grit, that’s for sure. And I bet she would have figured it out. But when it’s dark and you really cannot see where you’re going? That’s tough business.

Let’s talk about piano recitals in college for a minute. You see, Lucy has, with my sister Saydi’s help, figured out how to take piano lessons up there. Which is really quite incredible. She just loves the piano so much. She’s had some ups and downs trying to figure this out. But has landed with a pretty awesome teacher who is a concert pianist who teaches non-music-major piano students.

AND THEY WERE INCREDIBLE! I felt like I was at a luxurious piano concert, so many amazingly talented kids.

But let’s back up for a minute to tell about me and Lucy’s journey. I got there in time enough to help her hang up the painting I had made for her (we had started on this but had to finish this evening).

I helped her learn the end of her song on the dorm piano.

And then we headed over, across that dark and COLD campus, to listen to all this luxurious music.

I have to admit, I cried when Lucy played.

I am just so proud of her and that this represents SO MUCH hard work on her part to figure this out. I cried because I love how much she loves piano. How much grit she has. How this calms her heart. I love that she’s not afraid to perform. And that she plays with so much emotion and beauty.

After we let all that beautiful music wash over us, we headed back across that cold campus, arm in arm through the dark night.

And I watched her walk confidently away from me. Back to that new life she is making her own.

I love her forever.

And ever.