On Being a Mom and a Few Tears

I’ve been raking through dozens of family photo albums looking for pictures to include in my daughter’s senior collage.

I look wistfully at the four by six memories in my hand—a happy faced, blond girl as she peeks out of a pink slide tunnel, sniffs a peony, sits in her desk on the first day of home school, models her first ballet leotard, and looks angelic in her costume for a Christmas pageant. And of course, the one that really gets me—the baby in the lamb suit.

So many images, which take me back to days that I’d like to step into a time machine and relive.

So many.

But, alas, I cannot.

This mothering thing is hard. Holding on. Letting go. Holding on. Letting go. Letting go.

Tomorrow she has her final ballet recital. She’ll slip on those Pointe shoes and fly across the stage right into the dreams of tomorrow. And I’ll be there to savor every microsecond of time I still have with her.

Then in a couple of weeks, the really big event. The mortarboard, the diploma, and a ticket to a school where she’ll pursue a degree in psychology.

Letting go.

When she was younger, I thought myself so wise in keeping this day in mind. I knew it would come. If I was aware, I thought, it wouldn’t take me by surprise.

Silly me.

I don’t know how any mother prepares to send off the ones she’s brought into the world except to lay them in the arms of Jesus. And I do.

So with one already flown the nest last year, and this one right behind him, I’m getting ready for a big cry.

In fact, I’m crying a little now. But it’s okay. This is what’s supposed to happen. This is the order. This is what God had in mind when he entrusted these precious ones to us.

Years ago, before I married my husband, God gave me this verse: “He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children”(Psalm 113:9). Such a far off dream at the time. And even after we were married, much stood in the way of ever having children. But thanks to God, many prayers, and skilled doctors, God fulfilled his promise to me.

For only a few moments longer now, I have her here with me, and though the tears may course down my cheeks, the joy will be in my heart, because I am so blessed.

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

Photo Stylized Portraiture