Casual Farewells
Friday, April 6, 2007
A Good Friday came in on a very cold morning with a freeze warning included.
Collette spent another seven hours training Forget-me-Not, who seemed to catch on quickly to everything as Collette had suspected. She was going to work well with the rest of the staff and as Ivy’s office partner.
The whole staff, even Rosemary who was still recovering, was there for Collette’s “retirement party”. Although Isabella insisted that Collette wasn’t really retiring.
“She isn’t, trust me,” Isabella laughed, knowing that becoming a mom was a whole new job in and of itself.
Everyone had brought something for the lunch. Sinai brought a cake baked by Rosie. Isabella brought the muscacholli. Ivy – good Dutch brown rolls. Jimmy – ice and sodas and little Meg and Donald. And Judah brought a salad.
“I was going to bring a salad made of cheese,” he said, knowing Collette’s aversion to vegetables. “But we’re already having cheese in the muscacholli.”
“Hey, I’ve been better about eating salads,” Collette said, adding a pile of the greenery to her plate.
“That’s how I knew Collette was expecting,” Ivy teased, “when I saw her start bringing fruits and vegetables with her to work.”
“Well, I knew she was expecting when I saw her profile change,” Sinai said, most obviously, digging into the spread on the table.
It was a good lunch to share with everyone. And for Collette’s appeasement, there were no special speeches or cards or anything else. It was quite casual. Everyone talked about the service from the night before and laughed over the various occurrences of the week in each other’s lives.
Isabella’s granddaughter had been up to some trouble that week, apparently. While having been shopping at the mall too long with her mother, she began to have a meltdown and behave very badly.
“I can’t be good anymore,” she finally announced to her parents. “I don’t have the love of Jesus in my heart!”
And Isabella’s other granddaughter, while learning about sin and what it was, insisted that she never did anything bad. So in her opinion, she didn’t sin.
The honesty of children…
The day was still bitter cold by the afternoon. Everyone filtered back to their duties of the day. And it was soon only Forget-me-Not and Collette left at the office amid brisk strong winds, almost a second winter.
Come late afternoon, Mom dropped by the office with Francis and Linnea to pick up the bulletin. They had just come from Great Skate where Linnea had won the limbo. Her prize was a funnel cake, which she gave to Mom. Mom loved funnel cake.
“Hmmmm, I wouldn’t mind doing the limbo for a funnel cake,” Forget-me-Not said, laughing. “I’ll have to take my girls out there sometime.”
In other news, Thursday afternoon, Judah had shared with the rest of the office, the latest word from Scott Hamilton Pie. His brother had become a Christian that day. Many years of hard trouble had proceeded that moment. And at the Maundy Thursday service, Scott had been telling everyone about how thrilled he was for his brother. It was a happy day for the Pie house.