Our Love Story: Part 13

Preface: If you’ve missed any of the “chapters” of our love story so far, go back & get caught up before continuing below!
Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4 — Part 5 — Part 6 — Part 7 — Part 8 — Part 9 — Part 10 — Part 11 — Part 12

It was Friday morning & we were staring down the barrel of 3 full days together. It might not sound like a lot, but being in a long-distance relationship meant that even 3 hours of time together (in person) was absolutely magical. It had been almost a full month since we’d seen each other, so the 3 days in front of us promised to be packed to the brim.

And packed to the brim they were. I had already given Derrick a run down of how the long-weekend was going to play out & for the most part, the “schedule” went pretty much as planned.

A Friday morning in October meant Homeschool Co-Op day for my family. Since I had graduated, I no longer attended as a student, but the rest of my siblings still did. My Mom was the fearless leader of the Co-Op that averaged around 100 students plus their parents, and met 10 weeks in the Spring & 10 weeks in the Fall. So, with Friday morning came the normal rush of waking up early, getting all 5 of my younger siblings dressed & out the door in time (which, if you’ve ever tried to herd little kids out of bed & into getting ready, you know that that’s a challenge)! Normally, I was up myself & getting ready to head to work at KFC, but with Derrick being there, of course, I had taken the day off.

As my family rolled out to head to the Co-Op, Derrick & I rolled out to meet my Grandparents for breakfast. All 4 of my Grandparents lived close by – in fact, my Dad’s parents lived in the same house that my family lived in. The houses were divided into a larger “main” house and a smaller “apartment”, so those Grandparents had already met Derrick the last time he had been down to visit (he had stayed in their guest room after all). My Mom’s parents still hadn’t met Derrick yet and breakfast with them seemed the best option to squeeze in a visit.

We ate pancakes & bacon at one of the local restaurants and my Grandma & Pap chatted with Derrick. They asked him all about his college, his major, his plans after school, and his life as a Pastor’s Kid.

When breakfast was finished, Derrick & I rushed back to the house for an intense practice session. We had less than 2 hours before we needed to leave to meet my Mom & the kids at the Co-Op for lunch, so we dug straight in to practice for Derrick’s upcoming recitals.

Even though I had had the music I would be accompanying Derrick with for a few weeks, I was still struggling with playing some of it. Some of it was printed so tiny & with most of the lyrics to the classical pieces written in a different language, I really struggled with listening to him sing & knowing where he was in the music.

Much to my relief, as we struggled through, I realized that I had practiced almost every single one of those classical songs way too fast. For whatever reason, in my head, their tempo was almost double what Derrick was actually trying to sing at. Knowing that I could slow the music way down made things so much better. I was still struggling, but suddenly felt like learning the pieces to accompany him during his recitals was within reach.

Thankfully, once we got to the more modern songs that were in English, we had fewer problems. Our 2 hours of practice came to a quick end, but what had started out scary & looming with disaster, ended on a more positive & “we can do this” note.

Knowing that we would have more time to practice that afternoon, we rushed off to have lunch at the Homeschool Co-Op with my Mom & siblings. It was pizza day, so we sat on the floor in the middle of the lunch-room, surrounded by around 100 other people chowing down on Pizza Hut Pizza. The morning had simply flown by & the 30-minute lunch at the Co-Op flew by even faster.

The afternoon brought another 2-hour practice session. This one went much smoother than the first. I was so glad because I could see that my struggles in accompanying Derrick were definitely wearing on him & making him anxious. He had to perform these concerts in order to graduate & I was his ticket to being accompanied. If I couldn’t figure out this music, he was in deep trouble. In other words, he was rolling the dice & putting all of his chips on me.

To top off that anxiety, we were all headed to the Lake House for the rest of the weekend. So, even though we would probably have a little bit of time Sunday night to get in a little more practice, this time on Friday afternoon was truly our only concentrated practice time for the rest of the weekend and before his concerts in November.

It didn’t help that I’m a bit of a perfectionist and so was Derrick. I was used to accompanying singing at church & a few random things through the years, but I felt so much pressure to get this right. And it was hard! It was a huge challenge, one that Friday afternoon I was regretting not putting more hours of practice into.

We came out of that second practice feeling much more confident than the first. Derrick seemed to have realized that even though he knew these songs backward & forward from singing them in class over & over, I truly was at a loss at how some of these pieces needed to sound. He spent some time really working with me to get the rhythm down on some of the more complicated songs & together, we left for the Lake House feeling like maybe this wasn’t going to be such a disaster after all.

Octobers in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland are some of the most beautiful days of the year. And we had a glorious weekend ahead of us. Even though I had warned Derrick that sometimes it can be cold, we had a sunny, blue-skied, weekend in the mid-70’s. It was almost like Deep Creek Lake was showing off to Derrick and no one complained!

If we had thought our Friday was packed, our Saturday & Sunday were equally full. It was the 2nd weekend of October which meant it was Autumn Glory Festival in Garrett County (the county the Lake is in). It’s literally the biggest event of the year with giant craft shows set up in the schools, vendors selling their goods & food everywhere, and an epic parade full of clowns, mini cars, horses, local high school bands, floats, and of course, lots of candy.

Derrick was such a good sport. Spending the day walking around crowded, hot, craft show buildings and watching a parade wasn’t exactly his idea of a “good time”. But he was simply happy to be getting to know my family better and to spend the day with me.

Even though Autumn Glory was the biggest event of the year for the Deep Creek Lake locals, it was slightly sad for my family. It signaled the end of the season. Octobers at the Lake, though beautiful, can also very quickly turn cold & snowy. For that reason, by Autumn Glory weekend, my family is always deep into the process of closing up the Lake House for the winter. This particular year, my family had plans to spend one more weekend at the Lake House before closing it up & winterizing it until the cold months broke & we would once again resume our weekly weekend trips down in the spring.

Sunday afternoon, we all helped my Dad pull the dock out of the water. It’s always so sad to see the lakeshore not only devoid of my Dad & Uncle’s boats, but the dock as well. Of course, the dock being up on the shore meant that the pieces quickly turned into giant seesaws that everyone took turns jumping on, trying to send the person on the other end flying.

As quickly has my siblings had fallen in love with Derrick the last time he had come to visit, they continued that infatuation this weekend. At any point during the weekend, any number of my little sisters or brother could be found giggling at him, clamoring to sit closest to him, and at every single moment vying for his attention.

On our way home that evening, we stopped at a little diner on the way home for dinner. Their regular food was pretty average, but their desserts were out of this world. Their pies were what they were known for miles around for & everyone was tempted to simply skip dinner & order 2 or 3 pieces of pie instead of regular food.

When we got back to my parent’s house, it was late – too late to get in another solid music practice. Derrick & I were okay with that though as we were confident in the practice we got (especially that second practice session). A few of my older siblings & my Mom (plus Derrick & I) found ourselves sitting downstairs in my parent’s family room. We were all talking & laughing about something when we heard a little voice from the top of the stairs call down, “Mom?”

We all paused our conversations, just in time to hear another small whimper of “Mom!” and then the sound of that little person emptying the contents of their stomach, presumably all down the stairs. My Mom instantly jumped up & found my little brother vomiting his dinner all over the place. My Mom has a notoriously weak stomach, so hand over her mouth, she came running back into the family room. Poor Steve was still heaving on the steps and that’s when Derrick jumped up to rush to his aid. Not being affected by the sight or smell of puke instantly put him at the top of the list of people nearby to help Steve.

“Oh, he had soda at dinner, didn’t he?” My Mom wailed. For a period of time when he was younger, my brother really struggled with drinking any sort of carbonated drinks – they just always seemed to make him sick to his stomach.

Having rushed to Steve’s rescue, Derrick then moved to begin cleaning up the steps. None of us wanted to go anywhere near that mess, so we gladly & graciously allowed him to do so. My Mom ushered Steve back upstairs to his bed. Amy ran to grab Derrick rags & before we knew it, Derrick had cleaned up the mess without even blinking an eye.

If Derrick had failed to make any impressions on my family over the weekend, that night he left a crater-sized impression: he wasn’t scared to jump in & do the dirty work. He had a strong stomach & cleaning up vomit didn’t phase him.

It wasn’t the grand exit I had planned for the weekend, but it worked. It took Derrick up another few notches in my family’s “book” & then just like that, our 3-day weekend was over.

We woke up early Monday morning, and once again dressed in my KFC uniform, I drove Derrick back out to the train station. We laughed & joked about the weekend: “You know you’ll never live that down, right? Cleaning up after my brother?”

Derrick laughed, “I guess cleaning up vomit is a skill I acquired working at the YMCA & summer camps all those years.”

“Well, now anytime anyone throws up, my Mom is going to wish you lived closer so she could call you for your help.”

It was a bright & sunny Monday morning, but no matter how brightly the sun shone, it was like a cloud covered that train station. This time, instead of being separated & not knowing when we would see each other again, we had a countdown. We had worked out all of the details with my parents over the weekend: in a little over a month, I would travel out to attend Derrick’s senior recital, and then we’d literally travel around the state of Pennsylvania to complete Derrick’s concert requirements (during which I’d accompany him). The next time we would be together would be fast & furious, but we didn’t care. It was better than not knowing when we’d see each other again. We said goodbye & Derrick got on the train to head back to college & I got in my little red car to go back to work.

30 days.

..Part 14 coming soon!