[Veritas]

Hm, no takers again? Well, I guess it's up to me once more to fill in the gap...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Criss and JD weren't the only ones musing about Dimi as a child. Her mother, Lyn, was feeling nostalgic as she went through her daughter's belongings stored in the attic. She sat on a rickety stool, sifting through a large box with DIMI'S STUFF scrawled on the top in black marker. Each item she picked up--a stuffed toy, a teen novel, a small photo album containing pictures of Dimi with friends and family--triggered a memory which filled her eyes with tears and her heart with longing.

There's a photo here of Dimi as a toddler, sitting on her Uncle Chris's lap next to her daddy. They're all wearing sunglasses and giving the thumbs up. She looks so cute! And here's Dimi's rubber duck, the one she always insisted on having with her for bath time. Here's her communion-confirmation certificate--I wondered what happened to it! Here's her old grade reports from elementary school--good grief, they're so smudged I can barely read them! Why did they have to switch to carbon copies instead of using paperboard like I had when I went to school?

She picked up a little white porcelain piggy bank and shook it. Dimi's baby bank! Hm! We were going to use it to save for her college education! She laughed to herself. It'll take several million of these to cover her tuition!

Tuition. College. Lyn set the piggy bank gently into the box. She had long accepted the fact that Dimi was growing up and would someday leave for college, but that day seemed so far off in the future that she had given it no thought. Now, that day was barely a week away, and she found herself totally unprepared for the changes to come. It seemed like only yesterday she was dressing her daughter for her first day of kindergarten; in a few days, she would helping her pack for college.

I'm going to be strong, she vowed. I'm not going to be clingy or weepy about it when she leaves. I'm going to show her how proud of her I am by smiling every step of the way there. When she moves into her dorm room, I'm going to leave and not look back! She's an adult now, not a child. Strong words, indeed, but they failed to lift her spirits. Lyn's maternal side still cried out My baby! My baby! I'm losing my baby!

The sharp sound of a door slam startled her out of her sorrowful mood.