Honey Walker’s journal–don’t read it; return it. Casus Dulces
Week Two, Day One – Freshman Year
Editor’s Note: Honey’s journal entries are numbered according to week and day of the week. As she does not keep daily entries, gaps appear in the numbering. Please see the Table of Contents for the full listing of entries.
I knew I’d have an email from my dad this morning, and I did.
Hey, Hon. yer Mom and I our so proud of you. I now you’re grades are really hi, but its not the grades Im proud of. Im proud of how hard you work and you fixed stuff that broke and cleaned messes others made and you do without complaning. Makes me a proud Dad.
Dont work to hard, ok, Hon? Take time to play too.
You know, Honey, someday its gonna come where you have to face a desicion. It will be a time when you go one way, and you now it makes yer Dad proud. You go another way, and you know it is what yer hart tells you.
Honey, when you get to that time, and you got that choise to make, then you promiss me that you will chose yer heart. kay? Dont chuse what I wud do. Or what you think woud make me proud. Do what yer heart tells you then, kay, Honey?
Cuz you’ve gone past me now. You done what I couldn’t do. So now its not bout making me proud any more. Now its about you following yer heart. Me and your Mom razed you well. We tought you to be the woman that you are. So now you can trust yerself.
Look I rote a book! I never wrote this much before even when I was oversees and writing to yer Mom. I better go, Honey. I gotta water the garden. You take care, and know that were proud of you.
–yer Dad. Here now and always. and always rooting for u.
What does he mean, I’ve gone past him? He was a Marine. And it’s not only in his service for our country that he’s been a hero. He’s been a hero of a dad, always making sure we had enough. Loving my mom. Supporting me. I could never go beyond my dad, not in the things that are important in life.
That email from my dad really made me think. It wasn’t what I expected at all. I thought that it would be so full of praises for me earning an A.
But he hardly even mentioned the grades. He mentioned the other stuff.
If it’s cleaning up messes, what is it about that which would make my dad proud? I’m seeing that that’s just something we all do around here.
Chipping in and helping out–making group meals and sharing–that’s just become part of dorm life for us now.
I’ll whip up a meal sometimes, and sometimes Brandon or one of the others will cook up something.
And we all enjoy eating and hanging out together–it’s like we’ve become family, I guess. I wonder if that’s something my dad feels proud of–all of us who were strangers at the beginning of the first semester now feeling like family.
I’m not sure what my dad meant by having to make a choice that would lead me away from him. So far in my life, every time I’ve had to make a choice, it’s been so clear that the right choice was the one that kept me in line with my family, with my dad, especially.
So what could it mean to be faced with a choice where my heart would lead me away from home?
My heart always leads home, and home is always in line with Mom and Dad.
I’m not sure if life feels as simple as it did before I started college.
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