What - give you away?? 

With special thoughts to my daughter and a tribute to my mother on Mother's Day 2015

Recently on April 18 we had a bridal shower for Lyn.  For weeks I had been hoping my muse would bring new thoughts to pass on to her on the threshold of her new life.  But I just felt the joy for her as she was to embark on a new future with a wonderful young man we are happy to embrace as a son, and sadness for me as I felt her move a little further away.  My thoughts kept going back to the words I had written for her as she was about to leave for college.  My feelings are so similar - so here we are 10 years later, I read to her the gently updated version....

It will be gone before you know it.  The fingerprints on the wall appear higher and higher.  Then suddenly they disappear.   – Dorothy Evslin

It’s nearly time….. my mother told me these days would go by fast though certain wintry days might appear very long. Once when you were a very young baby, I felt seduced by the glamour of being a working mother like so many other women I knew who juggled work and motherhood very adeptly.  As I stood by the sink washing tiny dishes and spoons one day I declared, “I could be doing something so much more important than this.”

“Like what?” said a voice, though there was no one there. 

I got the message and felt instantly free to embrace the feeling that I had been called to a loftier task to just be a mother and to enjoy our time together.

Now I still treasure the times when we go shopping and talk over lunch, when we go to Starbucks on a cold school holiday and talk by the fire, when we drive home together, and we talk about the news, school days, friends or difficult and unexpected situations.  I realize that I am very privileged to share these times as they are not the prerogative of every parent.   But I recall times when I used to talk with my own mother who had tea or hot chocolate waiting when I arrived home from school, and with whom I later shopped and shared my thoughts, concerns, and ideas.

The best conversations often begin with a probing or leading question.  Your deep questions always led me to spend many pensive moments thinking not just about the question, but about the deeper issues behind it. In your early years, these were never evident to you at the time.  As a student and for years after, I used to think that understanding Les Pensées de Pascal and the bleak side of the world of existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre were the important issues to grapple with.  Yet, as a child you led me to think more deeply about other, and more precious, mysteries.  It didn’t take long before my literary books were relegated to the lowest shelves of the bookcase and replaced with the true wisdom of Winnie the Pooh, Anne of Green Gables and other children’s books which speak more deeply to the heart of the listening adult.

One day, when you were three, you asked, “Mummy, when I’m six or five or four, will you not give me away?”  At first I couldn’t understand what would prompt such a question; as far as I recalled I had tried to be an enlightened mother and never threaten to give you away! In response, I assured you quite simply that I would love you forever and never give you away.  Additional questions on the topic in an attempt to solve the lingering doubts on your side and further assurances from mine did nothing to resolve the matter until it finally dawned on me that you believed parents must give their children away because I no longer lived at home with the people I called my mum and dad and had to communicate with them through the medium of the telephone.  Clarity followed – for me anyway!  You were able to let the matter drop when you resolved it in your mind with the reasoning, “I suppose you’ll just give me away when I’m a mummy.”

“When you’re going to marry the special person that God has for you, we’ll give you our blessing to marry him, but we’ll always love you and keep you in our hearts. We’ll always love you, for ever and ever.” It seemed so important to reassure a tiny child on this very crucial and scary issue. And yet, over the years you have been slowly but surely gaining confidence in your ability to go away.  We love the cell phone though–a.k.a. the family tracking device–that offers comfort and assurance to all involved.  

While we will never really ever give you away, we have entrusted you to the keeping of many people over the course of these years to help you gain your independence.  There have been the family members and friends, teachers - some of whom have been excellent role models and easy to entrust you to: tutors, swim coaches, youth leaders, and schools with challenging programs.  The search for a college during this past summers was difficult for us all because the search was to find the right environment, people, teachers, swim coach and team mates to whom we could entrust you all at once! Strangely enough, on our visits to Franklin and Marshall we had the feeling that this would be such a place: you were comfortable, and as we walked the campus and talked to people we had an assurance about the years that lay ahead.  

So be assured, while it will soon be time to let you go away, we are not giving you away. (Neither will we give away your things, not even the bunny, though I must once again hunt out the pate recipe in case she decides to try and take advantage of me!) We are simply entrusting you to  Corey in faith that he will provide the right environment for you to continue to grow, study, and mature. There we hope you can build on all that you have been taught and nurtured at home and in the places that we have provided until now.  We will be anxious for the phone calls to say you are coming home, alone, or with others who want to visit the Nation’s Capital, and we will be anxious for the times we can spend together, to talk, to hug, … .and then to let go again, because that is the nature of the safe place we call home. 

2005 and April 2015 :)