MY GIFT TO LIFE

Molly and I, 1993

There’s a pillow on my sofa that’s seam is coming undone.  Threads are frayed around it.  I’d like to fix it (even with my limited sewing skills), but it’s too far gone.  So I tuck the expanding hole to the back of the sofa and pretend it’s not there.  My daughter Molly found the hole while she was home for Spring Break, which is appropriate and somewhat ironic, as I fiddle with another quickly unraveling hole where Molly is concerned - this one in my heart.

Molly will graduate from Truman State University on May 10 and begin work at Principal Financial Group in Des Moines on June 1.  The transition marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.  Molly will have her own home in Des Moines (we helped her with the apartment hunt in March).  There will be no more Spring Breaks or long Christmas vacations.  There will be no more middle-of-the-afternoon phone calls from her as she walks across campus.  No more angst over class schedules or roommates.  No more studentness.

2005

Instead, she will be at the mercy of the corporate world.  She will pay her bills and become slave to the alarm clock and accrued vacation.  She is joining the adult world with adult worries.  And our relationship will change.

Like a gossamer thread unraveling between my fingertips, I feel the loss of my little girl with every fiber of my being – the slow unraveling, the slipping away.  Part of me wants to hold her tight and not let go.  The other part, the rational part, knows that that’s not the way the world works.

Charles M. Blow, New York Times, wrote about his own children:  “…my children are not truly mine. They don’t belong to me; they’ve simply been entrusted to me. They are a gift life gave to me, but one that I must one day give back to life.” 

2014

If I have to give her up to life, life is in for a treat.  She’s an amazing young woman – intelligent, kind, and loyal with a sharp mind and killer sense of humor.  She inherited a bit of my creativity and a lot of her dad’s analytical dexterity.  Principal is lucky to have her.

Tim and I had hoped she’d find her way to San Antonio when job hunting.  We even made sure a room was waiting for her in our new home, but fate didn’t wish to play that game.  Instead, fate’s sardonic sense of humor is taking Molly to Iowa, the place I left 30 years ago.

When I was first facing the “empty nest,” my Aunt Julie advised, “From the beginning they were not really yours, you were just given the privilege of being their parent ...” It has indeed been a privilege, one that I will hold in my heart.  Always. 

And so I let her go - the child, the student - and look forward to this new adult.  Life has big plans for my Molly.  As her mom, my role has changed.  I will still worry.  (Isn't that what mothers do best?)  But I also get to sit back and watch with awe and wonder, as her life unfolds.