Reality Comes a Knockin’

A few days ago, while we were still on vacation, our bishop sent Daniel a message letting him know that his mission call would probably come today or next Tuesday. Since today was the day Daniel was scheduled to get his wisdom teeth removed, we were all hoping that it would be next week. But life is full of irony and just a few minutes after Daniel got home and settled, we heard a cotton garbled exclamation of, “Oh look. My mission call came!”

I’ll admit that my heart rate increased, and I felt a little bit panicky. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I said the whole graduating from high school thing didn’t feel real yet? Having the mission call arrive was definitely a bit of reality seeping in, one I was expecting without knowing how I would react.

Because he was swollen and numbed up, Daniel opted to wait until later in the day to decide whether to invite everyone over tonight so he could open it or wait a few days. He waffled throughout the afternoon, but as dinner time approached and he still could not feel most of his face, he decided to wait until tomorrow. Kev thought I might not be able to handle the stress of waiting, but to be honest, after that first initial burst of anxiety, I’m actually ok. And since this is Daniel’s thing, Kev and I are happy to do whatever he prefers and made sure he knew that. So tomorrow we find out where Daniel will spend the next two years and how much longer we have until we need to deliver him to the MTC. I’m trying to adopt Daniel’s attitude of “I’m happy to go wherever the Lord wants me to go.” But to be just a little bit honest, I’m really hoping he isn’t being sent to some war torn, politically unstable part of the world where he will go to sleep each night to the lullaby of gunshots or political activists. It’s just the mom in me not wanting my child in harm’s way day in and day out.

And FYI-Daniel didn’t do anything weird or embarrassing as he was waking up from the anesthesia this morning. He just lifted his arm to ponder the IV that was still in it and that was about it. He did repeat himself for a little while, having forgotten he had already said things, but even that only lasted a very short while.