First Love Letter... Darcy received her first love letter today. She was with her daddy when he checked the mail this afternoon. Grant saw who the letter was from (Michael) as he handed it back to her. Curious, he asked her, "What does your letter say?" Darcy read aloud, "Dear Darcy I still like you. I hope you feel the same way about me..." Whereupon, she interupted her recitation and exclaimed, "Like you? I NEVER liked you!"

It was a very sweet letter, in which Michael implored Darcy to write to him or call him. The two kids haven't seen each other except for twice since we moved from our old church almost two years ago...once last Fall at an event where her daddy's bluegrass band was playing and then about a month ago when Michael's AWANA teacher unexpectedly dropped by our place with Michael and one other boy. The AWANA teacher told Grant in private that Michael was pining for Darcy, so he thought he would just 'drop by' with the boys so that Michael could say "Hi!" to Darcy again.

When I got home from work last night, in spite of all Darcy's protestations, it was obvious that she was quite pleased with the letter and valued it highly. I saw the glow on her face tonight when she showed me her letter in its entirety! She is rather pleased that young Michael has poured out his heart to her....but, she still hasn't quite forgiven him for making disparaging comments about Lightening's corral smelling. (We keep the corral cleaned out and it DOESN'T smell...but, I think Michael was just trying to get Darcy's attention last time he saw her...she was excited to introduce him to her horse, but he blew it by proclaiming the corral stank. Darcy's opinion of Michael plummeted in that moment. Later she exclaimed to me quite indignantly, "I LIKE the smell of horse manure!" Unstated was her obvious opinion that she had no intention of wasting her time on any boy that didn't appreciate the smell of horse manure! I couldn't help but remember years ago when my little brother picked himself up off the ground, dusted off his hat, looked towards the bull that had just thrown him and exclaimed with reverence in his voice, "I love the smell of dirt and manure." I wasn't sure I quite shared his opinion as we all filed into a Country Kitchen a little while later to have dessert together...I could smell his hard earned 'cologne' a bit too well! But, back to the present...poor Michael really did bring himself down a notch with that careless comment a month or so back to Darcy...still, she seemed rather pleased with his letter today and I notice that she didn't leave it laying around the house like she leaves everything else lying around. Michael is a nice kid. If someone is going to set their cap for my daughter, I guess it is okay for Michael to!

All of this reminds me of a conversation of RAYNA'S a few days ago. When she and I were having our "Mother Day" (as she calls it, so often dropping the "daughter" part of "Mother-Daughter Day"), we stopped at the grocery store on the way home. There, I ran into Dave, a respiratory therapist from the hospital I work at. Dave and I often chat about horses at work. He has HUGE draft horses. Anyway, he asked Rayna about HER horses and that is all it took...she chatted him up one side and down the other, telling him all about her horses. Then, to my shock AND HIS, she dashed across the aisle to him and reached up around his waist and gave him a big bear hug before smiling up at him and turning on her heels to skip back over to me. After we had moved on to another aisle, Rayna told me, "I didn't get to give great grandad a hug before he died, but I gave THAT big guy a hug!" She confided this to me with great importance. Later, we wound up in the same check out line as Dave. Rayna again struck up her conversation with him, but this time she brought up her favorite subject (even over horses)...her future marriage. After she had talked about it for a bit, she paused a moment reflectively and then, her voice heavy with concern, she admitted to Dave that there might not be anyone who would WANT to marry her. Dave looked down at her and said, "Honey, the boys will be LINING UP wanting to marry YOU!" Then he looked up at me and quietly intoned, "Her daddy better be getting his rifle ready!" I agree...but, I think it is Darcy we need to worry about before Rayna....even though Darcy has always been adament in her insistance that SHE will NEVER get married.  ¶ 6/10/2006 08:26:00 PM