Loaded down with suitcases, boxes, a dorm-size fridge, and baggage (because her mother is a very great sinner), my baby girl and her daddy seemed prepared for the seven-hour drive ahead. At the last moment, my daughter ran back into her room to grab her Samantha doll, as if to cling to her precious childhood just a bit longer.
I followed in my car behind my husband and daughter calling my friend Ethel to let her know we were on our way. She thought we had a bad phone connection. What she couldn't hear was me choking out the words, "I...can't...do...this!" between sobs.
As my daughter drove north through Massachusetts, her first experience with interstate driving, I watched her little Subaru disappear from view behind a large tractor trailer. I screamed prayer, "Lord! Take care of my baby girl! That truck is so big, and she's so little!" Because it is my heartfelt belief and theological conviction that Christmas fixes everything, I listened to Christmas music, to Andy Williams singing, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." For four hours. Oh, how I needed to hear the truth that Christ really did come in the flesh, becoming incarnate to taste my sadness!
Well-meaning friends had tried to reassure me. "She'll be back," they said. But I knew she wouldn't be, not really. She was moving on in her life, taking with her the things she thought she would need, leaving others behind.
It's those things left behind that catch me off guard, that stop me short. The touchstones of her childhood; remnants of things that mattered so much at the time. So quickly she moved from diapers to dress-up clothes, to pencils and notebooks and gel pens, through braces and hair scrunchies, into adolescence and lip gloss and face wash. Her bedroom and bathroom hold artifacts of her life as a little girl. Her life with us.
She'll be returning soon to pack up the rest of her things as she prepares to leave for good, to get married and start her own home. More things will be left behind; more discarded. And I hope and pray that of all the things she takes with her, she takes those that matter most.
(Yes, if you were doing the math, you are right. She finished college in three years, having begun with a number of college credits under her belt, because her task master homeschooling mother cracked the whip over her during her high school years. Did I mention she'll be taking baggage with her?)
Linking up with emily at imperfect prose, because art and beauty and words matter.
15 comments:
i have two little boys and one day they will cleave from me and my wife...and it will be hard...it is ok to grieve her leaving...and of course to pray fervently for God to watch over her...and that he give you time for the baggage when it is right...smiles.
thanks for popping over from emily's...
Oh Nancy, I so get this. Love you.
nancy, this makes my still-little-girl heart understand my mama a little more. oh, the baggage. oh, the things that truly began separating us when i did go off to college, and they needed to happen, but underneath it all, there was this. i didn't know, how could i? i just wanted to be grown and important and make a splash. and now that my mom and i are repariring, i see the fear in her eyes that the truck is still bigger than i am, that she doesn't know my husband or my kids, that she fears i'll never come home again.
i am pretty sure she has held on to the little things we girls left behind as well.
Oh, Nancy, how we dance the same dance, on different sides!
And i LOVE that you listen to Christmas music out of season ... it's a go-to feel good for me, but it drives my husband batty...
a lovely post, warming and rending at the same time - goodbye's must always be said, but when those who are leaving live in our hearts, goodbye never means 'the end' - unless we believe our minds that tell us so
Bless you, pray for you.
She will certainly turn around, it is only a matter of time.
oh this makes me feel a bit sad, this child-leaving-as-a-sort-of-death to mourn!
i'm pretty sure my mom was glad to have us out of the house. coming home now is wonderful--we just all had a lot of growing to do:)
transitions and changes are so difficult, but they do open spaces for God to work and dwell and move. blessing to you on this next one.
nancy, your posts bleeds love... what a blessed family, to have a mother who keeps shower soap in place in memory of what once was... an ode to the heart-womb. you're beautiful, and your words are wise. xo
I love this post, as it provides such beautiful perspective, to see things from my mother's side, and to remember the fleeting time with my little girls. Wonderful post.
Nancy, did she not return between semester?
Oh my.
I hope the baggage I've heaped on my babes is feather light.
beautiful
Oh Nancy, my heart breaks for you. Transition is so hard. I can't imagine the day my boys grow up and leave for school. That seems so long from now, but yet I know it will rush by so fast. I'll pray for peace for you and safety and well-being for your daughter.
Awww... so sweet. My daughter is almost 14 so that time is coming for me sooner than I think. The teen years are pretty rough right now, but I have to remember this will pass and I need to cherish these days (as tough as they are at times) because soon she'll be gone.
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog this week!
I had to smile BIG when I read how you listened to Christmas music to ease the pain. You are a darling soul!
I sooo "get" this reaction. I can listen to the Osmond's Christmas album, and thus repair almost any internal sorrow. :-)
Your post speaks to me today, as I prepare to send my wee ones off to school this week. Thank you for this, Nancy.
Thanks so much for visiting Jade, my friend.
I sprayed my kids with that "no grow" spray when they were little...didn't work.
You hear it over and over when they are growing up and soak in every minute with them, yet I still find myself so unprepared for this time of transition.
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