Perseverance

You wonder if you have taught them the skills to make it on their own. You worry about whether they understand how difficult the real world can be, and question how they will manage once you are not there opening all the doors with them or for them. Then experiences present themselves in your children's lives and you find out what they are made of.

River left Sunday night to go to a college campus that is a couple hours away. He is taking some courses that the Union is providing, free of charge. He is staying at the dorm that is free room and board. It is a two week program that will help prepare him in the construction field that he is planning on pursuing. The address that the Union gave him seemed easy enough, and if you know River than you know he is one that is double checking on Mapquest and charging up his GPS to assist him in finding the place. All should be well and uneventful, right? WRONG!

Last night I got the call from River with the horrific tale. My heart sank as he explained the whole ordeal. He drove to the college town, but he couldn't find the address that was given. He spent hours trying to locate the place. He spoke to numerous people, of which none could help him. After many hours, he tried to call home. However, an unmentionable brother was on the telephone and each time River called home the brother happened to miss the call. (That is an entirely separate story that involved some phone privileges removed....lol.) Anyway, it wasn't until much later that night we discovered that River had tried to call us. River's cell phone has been turned off for a while now and he was only able to telephone us by a pay phone; a pay phone that cost him $5.00 in quarters. After not being able to get a hold of Den and I he decided to spend the night in a supermarket parking lot. Can I just interject right here and say how sad I felt when he shared this with me. He was also sick with a flu bug that I had mentioned Roman having on my previous post, and he spent the night throwing up in that parking lot throughout the night. I'm sure he was quite ill because I had been throwing up the 24 hours before and knew just how brutal that bug was.

The next morning, at 5am, he got up and went back to find help at the campus. He walked around for hours because the road construction was so bad that he was getting turned around trying to relocate himself. He finally found someone who got on a computer with him and tried to find the Union program that he was signed up for. They spent over an hour and a half trying to track down any information whatsoever, eventually and through lots of prayer (he said) they discovered that this location wasn't in this town at all, but 15 minutes away. So he scurried off to the new location, and he had to beg his way in to the class. The teacher agreed that many students in the past had run in to the same dilemma, and let him in to the class tardy.

So at the end of the day River succeeded. He was a little worse for wear, but he persevered. He said that he just couldn't come back home and tell us that he couldn't find the place. He knew that he HAD to make it work and this made him push on. He said he prayed and prayed and prayed, and he said, eventually, it all worked out.

Den and I were so proud of him. Once we both got off the phone with him we talked about our boys. We talked about who River was becoming and how he was a go-getter. He had some difficult lessons to learn in life, just like the rest of us, but at least he knew who to lean on when times got tough, and he has the mentality to do whatever it takes to succeed.

YEAH RIVER!!!