June 13, 2337

  Dear Danielle,

  It’s still hard to believe that you’re really gone. It’s been about a week and a half, I guess. We tried making Eva go to the usual summer day-camp for Awakening school kids this week, but she’s been reluctant to leave the house, and her counselor caught me at pick-up time yesterday and said she’s not doing well. We had a long, difficult talk at the dinner table – difficult because we were trying to reassure her that nothing bad would happen to her, but since your “impossible” sending, a lot of kids here Inside are having trouble believing that anywhere is truly safe.

  This morning, she kept going on about Friday the 13th and back luck, and didn’t want to come down from her room, let alone go to day camp. Needless to say, just pointing out that it was Wednesday and not Friday didn’t help! We ended up skipping breakfast to pray as a family. We prayed for Eva’s safety at camp, and your safety Outside, and even Timmy and Lydie’s safety playing in the back bend while your mom is in her office and I’m at work.

  I got a funny feeling while we were praying; a feeling that you were actually going to be in great danger today. A minute after it started, Timmy, of all people, prayed “God I know Danielle’s going to be super in danger today, but please keep her safe anyway.” Eva tried to tell him he shouldn’t say that (the part about you being in danger), and your mom tried to ask him why he thought so. He seemed confused that nobody else was so sure, but all he could say was he “just knew.” I wasn’t sure what to say, myself, because I felt like I also “just knew.” In the end, I settled for pointing out that we wouldn’t know for sure until you came back and we compared diaries, but it wouldn’t hurt to pray for your protection whether you were in special danger today or not.

  I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve been praying for your safety a whole, whole lot today. As I write this, late at night, I’m confident that you are safe, at least for now, and I can’t explain that either; but it was a stressful day. I look forward to reading your own diary, and finding out if anything happened on this date that you felt was particularly dangerous, compared to any other day here at the beginning.

  Timmy apparently ended the day confident that God had protected you, too. I had to hide my laugh when he and Eva got in a fight about it. Eva made it through day camp, but she’s still really struggling with fear – for you, for herself, for everyone. Timothy, bless his literally child-like faith, told her that she was being silly because of course God protected you – we prayed, didn’t we?! I took him off to get tucked into bed, and your mom had another long talk with Eva and Lyddie in their room, and everyone seems to be sleeping peacefully now. As much as I worry for you myself, though, I couldn’t help but love the way Timmy simply trusted that God would take care of you. I hope that I can grow that level of trust in my own heart!

  At least you’ll have a journal entry from everyone for today – we’ve been having a bit of a slow start, but we all wrote in our journals as a family after supper. Even Micah did some complicated coloring in the cheap sketchbook we’re having him use for now. (Complicated for him still means something like “used more than one color” but today he used yellow and purple, and he even kept them on different parts of the page!) He tried to tell your mom what she should write, too – some wild story about “the glowy purple making people fly.” I think she recorded it as best she could. You’ll love it, when you finally get to read it! It reminded me of the kind of stories you told as a pre-schooler, and just look how you grew up to be such a story-teller that the System took notice!

  I hope your System is filling up with the Skills you need to survive and thrive, to silence fear in your own life and to help others. I suppose by the time you read this, I’ll know how it came out, but for now, I’m still praying for your protection in every facet of your life and that you will grow to be courageous and resilient, honorable, kind, and generous.

  I suppose I’m talking too much about you in a journal that is supposed to tell you about my own life. Honestly, though, right now I’m thinking about you a lot more than usual! It helps that you promised to keep a journal of your own, for several different reasons. For one thing, it helps ease the grief of knowing that I won’t get to watch you grow up the rest of the way, just a little, since at least I know I’ll get to read about it. For another thing, it reminds me that you aren’t falling apart, you’re thinking about the future and doing what you can. As a slightly morbid third thing, we’ve spoken to a number of other parents of young Sent, and the Returned Citizens among the group tell us that as long as they don’t return “personal effects” to us, that proves you’re alive – sort of a “no news is good news” situation. It’s a thin enough reassurance, but as long as you’re keeping a diary, and I don’t have it yet, you have to be still alive.

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  I hope you’re filling your diary with life and growth, and probably struggles too. I’ll try to do a better job of getting in regular entries of my own. Two entries in twelve days isn’t exactly a perfect record, but give me a break – I’m still getting used to this! Heh, I’m sure you’re getting used to all kinds of things, so I’ll understand if your own entries are a little sparse.

  Anyway, let’s see if I can concentrate on my own life for a paragraph or two! Work has been boring; I’m as-builting an old system, so it’s been following dusty cables back and forth and identifying relays all day for the whole week so far. Hopefully I’ll be done tomorrow, and I can get to work properly on the new design! This system is in such dire need of updating. I’d be more upset about having to as-built it by hand, except it’s been a good distraction in the midst of a stressful month.

  I haven’t done anything interesting on the breadboard; I had cleared it for a project I wanted to do with you this month, expecting a normal school break, and since you’re not here I just haven’t gotten to it. I’ve been spending a lot of extra time reassuring your brothers and sisters, anyway. Maybe Eva will want to do it with me in a year or two. I wrote about the special church service right after you were Sent in my last entry; the one this week was almost normal again already, which felt both wrong and right – hard to explain. At least they reminded everyone to be praying for you and the other young Sent.

  I don’t know what else to talk about besides family, and the rest of the family is writing their own diaries for you. I guess I can summarize what it looks like from my perspective? I already told you about Eva; she at least made it through day camp today. Timmy is obviously thinking about you, but with him, it comes out less as fear for his own safety and more as wild, seemingly-random questions about the Outside. He’s making your mom and me do research! Lyddie swings from seeming normal to having crying fits at random times, and jumps between asking when you’ll be back and if you’ll have super powers, or asking if you’re really dead/mutant/gone insane (basically whatever she last overheard anyone saying would happen to the Sent kids). I think she doesn’t entirely understand what’s going on, but everyone else’s stress is throwing her for a loop on top of her own struggle just to comprehend the problem. Micah is just being a four-year-old, though of course he’s also doing some crying and acting out that is as much about everyone else being stressed as about any stress of his own. He really just doesn’t truly understand.

  I don’t know what’s going on in your mom’s head right now; but she’s mature enough that you can probably get a better idea when you read her entry from today than I could give you right now. (Unlike Micah, with his crayon scribbles!) She’s obviously doing her best to be strong and comforting for your brothers and sisters, even though she’s worried for you. I understand she’s got a boring, low-level project of her own this week – something about security fencing for a work site, nothing she hasn’t done before. It’s possible that our employer intentionally gave us both some busy-work to do for a few days while we get our heads straight; not that it isn’t real work, but it’s something a little easier than the usual. If they’re doing it on purpose, I can’t say I’m not grateful.

  We both know that nobody can do that for you, out there. Well, nobody but God! I hope you are finding things small and large to be grateful for, one way or the other. I hope you are finding people to support you, and that you are supporting them in turn, so that when you all come back Inside and read these diaries, you’ll find that they’re grateful they had you!

  The Sending Authority tells us we’ll get to write you an actual letter about this time next year. Maybe I’ll copy select diary entries and send them? Maybe not this one, though. I feel like I’m rambling a lot here. I don’t understand why they insist on being so parsimonious with basic communication options.

  God bless you, my dear daughter; God keep you from death and from despair. May you indeed grow into someone honorable, and kind, and wise.

  We’ll see you in a few years! I’m sure of it!

  -Dad

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