He left yesterday afternoon, my son did. Left on a 25-hour, 1700 mile trek across the country for a new adventure. It's awesome. I'm a mess. A puddle.
I don't know why this is so hard. This isn't my first rodeo. When my oldest left for St. Louis 3.5 years ago, I thought in my heart it was temporary. It wasn't. When my youngest left for Iowa one year ago this week, I thought in my heart it was temporary. It wasn't. I realize that I don't have any such illusions this time. I have to know it could be for good.
People assume the sorrow is because I now have an empty nest...well, sort of. (My nest regularly refills with my 6 year-old granddaughter several times a week.) And no. It isn't that I no longer feel needed. And it isn't so much that I long to have some chick under my feathers to cluck over. I don't cluck. I never have. And my son refused to ever be clucked at. We were a good team that way.
It is just that I feel this absence so keenly. And I don't know why.
I don't know a lot of things these days. In fact I seem to know less than I used to.
But there is one thing I do know. I want my kids to thrive. I want them to go...go...GO out there. Wherever. I want them to go wherever they need to go and do whatever they need to do and be whatever God has called them to be. I don't ever want to hold them back or bring them down because I have some silly emotional need to be close.
I never had that freedom. Yes, I moved away from my home but I never felt that it was really OK for me to do that. It was never OK for me to be where I was or what I was or who I was. I never had the emotional backing from a mother to do my thing and be who God created me to be and not what she so wanted me to be. I refuse to do that to my children.
This is what I want for you, my children. GO, DO, BE. Wherever you need to. You have my blessing. And my love. Always.
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