My name is Robin Jelinek. I live in a Rhinelander, located in Northern Wisconsin. My husband Dave and I own and operate a water well drilling business. I have two sons ages 24 and 20 and I missed them a great deal when they left home. I have always enjoyed children and through writing I am able to keep connected with them.
I recently had the opportunity to visit the town that I grew up in as a child. My husband and I searched for quite sometime until we were finally able to find my old home. It was a very emotional experience for me. My father and I planted a long row of pine trees that edged the driveway to our house. I could hear his words as we drove up, “Someday when you are grown up these trees will be 30 feet tall”. Imagine my expression at seeing these trees just as he said they would be over 35 years later. As we approached the house there was an older gentleman, the current owner, working in the garden. I and walked over and told him that I lived in this house as a child. He had known my father and had kept up the house and 13 acres just as it was when I lived there. “Your father had quite a vision when it came to trees”, he commented with a smile.
He then offered me to come into the house and have a look around. I was struck when I entered the front door at the size of everything. My memories of a huge fireplace, large kitchen, dining room and bedrooms suddenly changed. How could this be? How could this home that I lived in be so small when I remembered it as being so big? That is when I realized that in a child’s eyes everything is big and meaningful. Everything seems so huge when they are young. An understanding came to me of how impacting things are whether it is where they live or the words they hear, there is a lasing impression made. The time to plant the seeds of “what a child can grow to be” is while they are young and full of possibilities. Through my writing I would like to send a message to children and their parents of how special and limitless they really are.