Highs and Lows

Yesterday, Saturday, 30 September, was a day of profound emotional highs and lows.

The day started out on an anxious note as I rose at 5.45, my normal hour for awakening, to get ready to drive up to Wake Forest University and take the LSAT. I felt prepared enough for the test. I'd taken a prep class and had taken several practice test sections, so I knew what to expect on the actual test. I'd driven past the testing site (the WFU law school) and scoped out the parking situation, so I felt that I knew what to expect at the site. The test itself went well enough. There was one reading comprehension section on which I ran out of time and had to C-C-C, but I don't think that I grossly screwed up anything, so I feel good about my performance. I felt so relieved... positively giddy... as I walked out of the testing center. My score will arrive in three weeks, just a few days after I return from Manila. That was the high note.

The low came at 7 o'clock yesterday evening when the phone rang with a call from a mobile phone number that I didn't recognize. I picked up and didn't immediately recognize my Pops' voice, but when I did, I knew why he was calling. Granny had passed away just minutes before. I had been expecting the news for some time, but it was still a surprise and saddening when it finally arrived.

So now, there's the question of the arrangements for Granny's memorial service. I'm leaving for Manila on Tuesday and I was relying on my cousin, Billy, to take me to the airport. I don't expect my family to make arrangements specifically to accommodate me, so I wonder how I might need to change my plans and whether I'll even be able to attend the funeral. I feel a bit selfish and very awkward about this situation.

I'll just have to let go and see how God leads me to handle Granny's memorial service. That strategy has worked out quite well for me this year and has brought me a great boyfriend in the immediate wake of my divorce, helped me to lose 35 pounds (16 kilos) since January, led me to start the process of applying to law school, and is about to put me on a plane for a 24-hour trip to Asia to visit my boyfriend. All of this in a year! Who knows where else I might be led! :J

Marcia Veatrice Jones Towell
1911-2006