It's been exactly a week since I dropped my oldest daughter, Chloe, off at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT. I will not see her or hug her for 18 long months while she serves the people of Northern France. It's easy and it's hard to be sad. Come on...Paris! She has dreamt of a French address since she was a little girl and I taught her little phrases and we would act out scenes from Madeline. I'd go along as Madame Clavel and speak in rhyme with a really exagerrated Parisian accent. But of course Chloe is going to Paris! She's worn berets with her winter coats for years. Also for years she carried around this little black poodle beanie baby we named Pierre who could only understand French. I found loveworn Pierre as I was going through Chloe's old things yesterday; maybe he should go to Paris with her where he belongs. I remember when she and her little sister, Ainsley helped make a special french dinner and then decorated our kitchen like it was a French cafe -- "Cafe Pamplemousse" is what we dubbed it (it means grapefruit cafe, but we called it that just because pamplemousse is so fun to say.) Ainsley painted on a moustache and was the "garcon" who waited on us. Classic. Ainsley wishes she could go too. They both have been to Paris when they were young teenagers -- barely emerging the tween years. All that sumptious visual beauty changed the way they viewed the world a bit. I don't think it ruined them for regular life, but it increased their artistic vocabularies and by association, made them feel a little more beautiful themselves. I hope.
So we commemorated (I don't know if celebrated is the right word) the news of Chloe's mission call in a few different ways. One Sunday evening, we had some cousins over for a French dinner. I didn't rename the dining room Cafe Pamplemousse or The French Laundry this time, but I did look up on-line Thomas Keller's recipe for cassoulet. My newlywed niece and her husband who are early risers were my sous-chefs. Tanner was in charge of cooking the kind-I-never-buy, really good, really thick bacon. When he asked if he should put it in the big pot along with the other meats and good things beginning to simmer, I explained that the bacon was just a garnish for the top -- all that trouble for a garnish? his raised eyebrows seemed to say to me -- perhaps Tanner had uncovered a key to the french appetite for delicacies -- the effort spent on even the seemingly smallest details, probably makes it all taste better.
There's a french idiom that's slightly different than our counterpart in English. It is -- ca vaut la peine. It essentially means, "It's worth the hardship." In English we typically just say, "it's worth it" , without really defining what the "it" is, but in French, they clarify, "Ca vaut la peine." "La peine" can mean sorrow, grief, effort, trouble, or difficulty. So...are finishing touches and beauty and good craftsmanship,...worth the sorrow, grief, effort, trouble, or difficulty? That's the French way. And does the effort, difficulty,...create or at least supplement the value of the object of our sacrifice? I wonder.
As I was boxing up some of Chloe's old mementos yesterday, deconstructing her old message board and emptying desk drawers so her 14 year old brother can claim his new territory (ie. her old room) I came across an old scribbled assignment from one of her young women's classes probably years ago. It was a personal written pledge of all the things she would do, penned in her 12 year old handwriting, so that she could make it to the temple one day -- the typical Sunday School answers: pray and read, have pure thoughts, don't put herself in situations on temptation, clean media, clean language,...In today's world, she had to go out of her way to accomplish these goals. She had to stand up for her higher standards in front of her classmates and her teachers and her employers who weren't always understanding. But she did it! Ca vaut la peine Chloe! And she made it! That's what we ought to truly commemorate -- not where she is going, but why and how she got there. I am so proud of her! Now she is going to testify to others that living the gospel is worth whatever hardship, whatever sacrifice. The Lord compensates, and it will all be worth it. Even saying goodbye to your 19 year old hero for 18 months...but it still hurts.
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