So, my babysitter of eight years and the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen has just celebrated her one year anniversary of marrying her husband Hector. Congratulations, Britlyn. You’ve saved my sanity on so many levels so many times.
Every mother needs a Britlyn. I wish every frazzled mom out there some darling tweenager who swoops in, loves her children, takes care of them every Friday night during date night, bathes the girls and does their hair cute, cleans up the house, and creates a general sense of order in the chaos–and continues to do so for the duration of her teenage years. And beyond! Britlyn came and stayed at our house for a few days last spring so we could go on a trip as a couple (one of our first ever). This while she was nearly 21 and engaged.
I love that girl.
And now she has moved to Mexico. She married a handsome man from one of the Mormon Colonies south of the border, whose family is super lovely and embraced her instantly. When I met them at her wedding, I felt so relieved to know I was letting her go into good hands. (Am I like her mom, or what?)
But things in Mexico aren’t all peachy keen these days. My friend Danielle is basically a refugee living in our neighborhood right now with her five kids while her husband is still down in Guadalahara for a few more months. I’ve been wide-eyed at some of her harrowing stories. I also spent a few minutes today talking with my friend Mary Ann, who was telling me her sister is now living in another town in our valley after needing to leave her longtime home in the Colonies.
So with all that on my mind, it was timely to run across this article in the Smithsonian magazine yesterday morning. (That’s a great magazine, by the way. Super interesting articles, very well written.) It was a story on the Mormon Colonies where Mitt Romney’s extended family still lives, and on the history of the place, etc. The pictures make it look so pretty!
We live so close to the Mexican border, that a lot of this stuff has touched the lives of people I know and love. With my dear, dear Britlyn moving that direction I’ve started to feel it hitting home–even though I’ve never been there myself. (Although come to think of it, my husband’s ancestry has some kind of ties there, so it belongs to my kids, if not directly to me.)
I just find it interesting how things crop up in batches–ideas and events and stuff–all hitting at once. This is just one that has been in frequent circulation in my brain and conversations and reading lately.
