I picked up Melanie that evening and we went to a restaurant to eat. I looked over to the same booth where I remembered that we had sat as a family eleven years before when we celebrated my baptism. Now I was going on a mission!
After dinner as Melanie and I were walking out to the car, she put her arm around me and pulled me close. In the car she gave me a kiss on the check. I’d wear that kiss for a long time. We had never kissed on the lips and somehow that kind of kiss didn’t seem needed at that moment either. We got to my house just as the family had pulled into the driveway from going to pick up Grandma Winnie. Then we all went in the van to the stake center where Grandpa and Grandma Loveless were waiting for us. We sat around and talked for a while until President Banks came in the room. He then joined with my Dad, and Grandpa Loveless in a circle as they placed their hands on my head and with the Priesthood, gave me a special blessing and set me apart as a full-time missionary.
We got back in the van and took Grandma Winnie home. Then it was time to drop Melanie off at her house. I walked her to the door. But I noticed Dad was also coming with us. Oh, yeah, that arms length thing, and always being with your companion. I shock Melanie’s hand and said good bye. I’d see her again at the airport in two months anyway. And we’d write. I had seven anxious children and my mother watching from the car to see what happened next. Dad had a yearning look on his face. “Do I get the kiss?” he said. We all said good night and Dad and I walked back to the van together. Later that night I wrote all those events in my journal as I finished it out. “This is the end of my childhood,” I wrote.
(By the way, this post is the 300th post of this blog!)
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