very dear person

Panic time! Early evening, Sunday, January 19, 2003. Our new Interim Rector has just come aboard, things are newly promising to settle down and smooth out at church, and we simultaneously return to HNEC from adventures abroad. Linda and I are hosting Father for dinner at our home, the Old Place. The phone rings: Tassy’s water has broken and she and Jeremy are on the way to the hospital. Our bags are packed and ready to leave for Tallahassee in an instant, on a moment’s notice. We communicate this, yet the evening stretches on and on. I grow nervous and nervouser and more and more nervouser yea unto nervousest. And on and on. As in due course it comes to an end, we follow our guest out the door, toss our bags into the car and head out. Panicked. When we arrive at the hospital driving time later, all is calm. We wait and wait. And wait and wait and wait. For Nature’s due course. Nature takes her time and has her way. In time Sunday stretches into Monday, Jeremy comes out and announces, "Caroline's here!" A little girl makes her debut into our lives. "Her name is Caroline," Tass tells me, "she's named for you." Thomas Carroll Weller. She is named for me. I am swept away with feelings. I still am, for this child and her mother. 

Caroline is exceptional, intellectually gifted. Scholastic. Music. Understanding, grasp, comprehension. Early, I asked her parents, “Don’t ever have a babysitter for this child, any time you need a babysitter, I will come.” We did that for years, a joy, always a joy. 

At about, was she quite one year old, I don’t remember, Linda and I were babysitting while T&J went to an office party, or to a concert, or other. I was holding Caroline. She was barely beginning to talk. I said to her, “You are a very dear person!” She stared at my lips and my eyes as I said it, then she repeated, “dear person.” Astonished, I remember the moment. 

When she was, maybe four years old, I don't think three, maybe three nearly four,  I'm not sure, at a school function at Holy Comforter Episcopal School, she went to the front, not at all nervous, confident; her father held an open prayerbook as Caroline read the prayer to open or close the event. Later, another child’s father complimented Jeremy that Caroline had memorized such a long prayer. Jeremy said, “It wasn't memorized, she was reading.” The other father’s mouth dropped. 

She was the child wonder her years at HCES, skipped a grade there. Starting high school at 13 and playing flute in the marching band, she’s now a second semester sophomore, an extraordinary student in whatever subject. My favorite place to go is Lincoln High School football home games, sit in the section right next to the band and watch her. 

She’s kind, and sweet, and loving, my very dear person. She amazes me. Just absolutely amazes me.

She’s fifteen this morning, early this morning. I suppose, with fear and trembling, that as of today she’s eligible for her learner’s permit to start driving a car. I pray that her interests are elsewhere and that she won't be the least bit concerned with driving a car for years to come, and let all the people say “amen.”

Morning has broken. Happy birthday, Caroline, I love you dearly.

Papa