Nothing really prepares you for this level of change.
There are days it feels as if a part of my heart has been ripped from my chest. I am walking around wounded, unwhole, and incomplete.
There are moments that my breath is taken and the sobbing begins before the second hand has time to move. In the post office mailing care packages, standing in the checkout line buying Halloween candy, when a song comes on Pandora that she would have belted out singing, when I spot the dusty piano, when I realize this is the first sports season, ever, that she wasn’t there to see her brother score a goal, when I walk by her bedroom and see all the bits and pieces of the life she left behind, as I plan our first ever big family trip without her, as I think about navigating the holidays and know they will be different from now on.
There are days I just want to go back to the moment she was born and do every single second over again, but I’m quickly reminded that’s not the way this works.
There was no tragedy to validate these feelings. We haven’t suffered a horrific loss in the traditional sense of the word. The universe has simply shifted and a big part of our world is now living in a dorm spending time with relative strangers three hours away.
We have simply moved to the next stage, parenting a college student. Things changed suddenly- but with plenty of notice. We spent part of her Junior year and ALL of her Senior year trying to think about how we were going to adjust, what this would be like, none of that was much help.
There are no guide books written for this stage of parenting. Potty-training, sleep-training, disciplining, educating, Toddler Tantrums, Teenagers... all addressed in books overflowing the bookstore shelves. None for this. I just don’t know how to do “it” yet. I don’t have it all figured out, knowing what to say, when, how much or how often to this girl of mine. You can’t cram day-to-day living into two FaceTime calls and a few texts a week.
But this weekend, joy of all joys, she came home for a surprise visit. She needed a dress from her closet for an event, boots and warmer clothes for the snow that may be coming, and her mini-Christmas tree to bring some holiday cheer. She had only planned to stay one night, she stayed two. We bribed her. I made a roast. We shopped for a few things she needed. We sat on the pew beside each other this morning joining voices in confession, prayer and praise. She made a glorious mess in the kitchen making brownies from scratch, not a mix. One batch were devoured by her brother and Dad, the other batch went back with her for her “new” friends.
We laughed, we talked, she told us about classes, professors and friends. She talked about majors and minors, plans and dreams.
She tickled her brother.
She said she was glad that she came home.
She said it’s only two more weeks til she’s home for Thanksgiving.
She said two weeks after that she’ll wrap up her first semester and be home for Christmas break.
Then we hugged, prayed and watched her drive away til she left the neighborhood.
It wasn’t any easier this time.
I didn’t have any tears until a few hours later and was singing part of “all through the night” at church choir practice, it was one of the songs I sang when she was a baby as a lullaby...
They say it’ll get easier.
They say, looking forward to the visits get sweeter and you focus on the preparation.
They say my work as her Momma is not done, just different.
They say it’s a bittersweet time, to celebrate all the hard work done and look forward to what is to come.
God says in Ecclesiastes 3:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven... a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; ....He has made everything beautiful in it’s time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil— this is God’s gift to man”
May I do this new work in this new season well... to God be the glory!
There are days it feels as if a part of my heart has been ripped from my chest. I am walking around wounded, unwhole, and incomplete.
There are moments that my breath is taken and the sobbing begins before the second hand has time to move. In the post office mailing care packages, standing in the checkout line buying Halloween candy, when a song comes on Pandora that she would have belted out singing, when I spot the dusty piano, when I realize this is the first sports season, ever, that she wasn’t there to see her brother score a goal, when I walk by her bedroom and see all the bits and pieces of the life she left behind, as I plan our first ever big family trip without her, as I think about navigating the holidays and know they will be different from now on.
There are days I just want to go back to the moment she was born and do every single second over again, but I’m quickly reminded that’s not the way this works.
There was no tragedy to validate these feelings. We haven’t suffered a horrific loss in the traditional sense of the word. The universe has simply shifted and a big part of our world is now living in a dorm spending time with relative strangers three hours away.
We have simply moved to the next stage, parenting a college student. Things changed suddenly- but with plenty of notice. We spent part of her Junior year and ALL of her Senior year trying to think about how we were going to adjust, what this would be like, none of that was much help.
There are no guide books written for this stage of parenting. Potty-training, sleep-training, disciplining, educating, Toddler Tantrums, Teenagers... all addressed in books overflowing the bookstore shelves. None for this. I just don’t know how to do “it” yet. I don’t have it all figured out, knowing what to say, when, how much or how often to this girl of mine. You can’t cram day-to-day living into two FaceTime calls and a few texts a week.
But this weekend, joy of all joys, she came home for a surprise visit. She needed a dress from her closet for an event, boots and warmer clothes for the snow that may be coming, and her mini-Christmas tree to bring some holiday cheer. She had only planned to stay one night, she stayed two. We bribed her. I made a roast. We shopped for a few things she needed. We sat on the pew beside each other this morning joining voices in confession, prayer and praise. She made a glorious mess in the kitchen making brownies from scratch, not a mix. One batch were devoured by her brother and Dad, the other batch went back with her for her “new” friends.
We laughed, we talked, she told us about classes, professors and friends. She talked about majors and minors, plans and dreams.
She tickled her brother.
She said she was glad that she came home.
She said it’s only two more weeks til she’s home for Thanksgiving.
She said two weeks after that she’ll wrap up her first semester and be home for Christmas break.
Then we hugged, prayed and watched her drive away til she left the neighborhood.
It wasn’t any easier this time.
I didn’t have any tears until a few hours later and was singing part of “all through the night” at church choir practice, it was one of the songs I sang when she was a baby as a lullaby...
They say it’ll get easier.
They say, looking forward to the visits get sweeter and you focus on the preparation.
They say my work as her Momma is not done, just different.
They say it’s a bittersweet time, to celebrate all the hard work done and look forward to what is to come.
God says in Ecclesiastes 3:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven... a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; ....He has made everything beautiful in it’s time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil— this is God’s gift to man”
May I do this new work in this new season well... to God be the glory!
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