Every separation, every send-off
takes a little part of my heart away with you.
From the first moment your
chubby legs toddled hesitantly
away from me into your
daddy’s waiting arms, I’ve known that
one day, one day, you’d grow
up and become you own person with,
problems, joys and sorrows and
I would no longer be naturally
connected to you.
Those intervening years filled with the
trauma of your father’s cancer to the
mean girls in middle school and the
self-loathing that you struggled with in
high school have all shaped your
hearts and pecked away at little
pieces of mine. We knit our
hearts back together again over
coffee Fridays and harry
mountaintop misadventures.
Both of you stand poised on the
precipice of adventure and growth and
all that awaits you in that job-holding, insurance
paying grown up world. Know that no
matter how much I may mutter and
question your plans and decisions, I am
proud of you and the way you’ve
overcome your struggles and learned to
face the next one with a stronger heart, a
strengthened faith and always courage.
I can send you off in peace, because I
know that you are in the Father’s hands
and that now you
choose to be
naturally connected to
me.