Sometime around 3am last night, The Big Easy finally settled down to sleep. I lay awake in the dark behind more layers of locked and barred gates and doors than I have ever personally experienced next to the all that matters most to me-
My sleeping 17-year-old daughter.
She wants to leave me, you see, and I, like some kind of idiot, seem to be assisting her in the process.
Tulane has been wooing her with the sweetest of siren songs about IB and AP credits, financial aid, beignets…blah, blah, blah….
I can’t believe I used to love this city. Now, like some vengeful god of Mayan proportions, it is asking for the sacrifice of my baby girl.
What right does it have to ask? Did it pray for her as I did, begging God for a daughter? Did it weep with joy when the ultrasound tech announced a baby girl was growing safely in the dark, and muffled quiet of my womb? Did it nurse her at it’s breast? Wipe every tear? Did it cheer her on when she grew weary or rise up in terrifying anger to defend her when she was in danger?
How can I do this? How do I let her go? I don’t know how…
Motherhood is the strangest and sweetest of loves, breathed into fierce beauty by the very breath of God. These tiny, red, screaming, alien looking creatures are placed into our arms and we immediately proclaim them beautiful. Then we spend long days and sleepless nights for years and years pouring everything we have and are into them, all in preparation for the day of sacrifice-
The day when we lay our hearts on the altar, and let them go.
Hardest (for you)/best(for her) thing you’ll ever do. Should check Ree Drummond’s blog “The Pioneer Woman”; she, too, is about to send her eldest/daughter off to college. Best to both of you.
Sweet. Believe me when I say, I understand.
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Remembering every last emotion that process brings…on the last moment of the last day we would see Amy as we left her at Wake Forest, she turned back around for one last wave. I cried as we drove away. Before we headed to lunch to hang around a little while longer “just in case she needed us”, we had to drive back to campus and circle her dorm one more time and to maybe catch one more glimpse of her.
It was 16 years ago and I can still remember every nuance and moment of that day. We were excited for her and as ready as you can be, but yes, a wonderful heartbreaking step in life. Our prayers are with you both.
I remember so well driving you to college , so hard to leave you there and drive home. God took good care of you and he will take care of Meghan. Remember the summer you worked a camp in the mountains of Kentucky and got lost on the way up there and called me. Agony and a lot of phone action and prayer got you there safely. Love you .