Week 3 Story: Adalynn and Steve, Leaving Home

Adalynn and Steve were fraternal twins with a single mother raising them. Their mother worked hard to provide for her children, and she treated them well. She came from money so she wasn't struggling to provide for them, they never went without and had a pretty cushioned life. Their dad wasn't necessarily absent in their life, but he wasn't around much. They lived with their mom in Chicago, while he lived in Washington State for work, so it was a long trip if they did see him.

(Chicago by szeke)

Their mother loved them very much but when she discovered some of the trouble Steve was getting into in Chicago, and that he was dragging Adalynn into that trouble, she realized that this wasn't the best place for them to live. She would have to send them away for their own good.

Her parents lived in Northern Michigan, right on the lake. She couldn't send them there because they would be too close to the trouble she was trying to get them away from. She also didn't see sending them to a blissful cushioned life on the water would be very fitting for the message she was trying to convey to them. They were in fact being punished for their actions.

She had connections with some faculty at a boarding school in St. Louis, but she didn't have the money to afford it and did not want to ask her parents for it, they had already done so much for her and her children. She also figured a city environment is what she needed to get her kids away from, not just Chicago in general, making St. Louis a poor choice. 

She finally came to the conclusion that the only option was to send them to be with their dad. This is what she least wanted but she knew it would be best for them. She sent them to be with their dad in Washington and they absolutely hated it. Everything there was so spread out. They had to drive 30 minutes to even get to the grocery store and being Chicago kids, they never got their licenses. They had to rely on their dad to go anywhere and he was busy enough as it was, he never expected to incorporate his children into his life on a day to day basis. They were not close with their father, they longed for their mother, and they hated the new setting of their life.

They were so upset with their situation and they told their mother, who knew this was most likely how they would react. She felt terrible about it, taking pity upon them. She never wanted to send them away, she loved her children very much and was beside herself with the despair she felt after taking them to the airport. She was merciful and kind, but there was nothing good for them in Chicago, and they had disobeyed her, this was what was best for them. 

But in her mercy, she began reaching out to some of her and her ex-husband's connections in their area, making sure someone was always watching over her children, acting as a guardian angel. She knew this was best for them and that she would see them again soon, but that time was not now.

Author's Note:

I based this story off of the Adam and Eve Reading unit, focusing on the specific story, Leaving the Garden. Leaving the Garden is about God deciding where to send Adam and Eve after he banished them from the garden for eating the forbidden fruit. He contemplates where to send them, not sending them north because the sea that would wash them from their sins is there. He doesn't send them south because the wind from the north could carry the delicious smell of the Garden to them, and because they are being punished and banished from the garden, he did not see this as a very fitting punishment. He instead sends them west to the rocks and caves. They tremble in fear in this unfamiliar terrain, and God in all his mercy, takes pity on them, sending them his word to raise them up. 

I kept pretty much the same plot, just changing many of the elements in the story. I swapped the genders of Adam and Eve, making Adam Adalynn and Eve Steve. I also subbed their mother in for God. The gender swap for Adam and Eve was made because, in the original unit, all of the blame was put onto Eve, and Adam, as a man, was faulted only for listening to Eve. In my story, I wanted the one "causing trouble" to be a boy, Steve, who was the one dragging Adalynn into his mess. The choice of the mother being God felt quite obvious to me because God saw Adam and Eve as his children, and I wanted to reflect that in my retelling in a very direct way. In terms of the setting of the story, I wanted it to be modern. The forbidden fruit in this case was just the trouble Steve was getting into, the reason their mother had to send them away. Chicago is their garden of Eden, and I tried to keep the relative cardinal directions the same, they couldn't go north to Michigan or south to St. Louis, instead, they had to go west to live with their father. The change in the landscape in this story is reflected by the transition from urban to rural rather than the transition from lush green to bare rock. People in the modern world are less affected by the terrain of their homes and more affected by the position of people around them relative to themselves. This transition was jarring for them. And finally, I reflected the pity God took on Adam and Eve with that of the mother taking pity on their children. 

Bibliography:

Leaving the Garden

Story source: The Forgotten Books of Eden, edited by Rutherford H. Platt, Jr. (1926): The First Book of Adam and Eve 1-2.