Over 18 years ago, I became a mom. It's really hard to believe it's gone so fast. But, when I was just 22 years old, a baby still myself, I gave birth to my first born on an unseasonably warm Minnesota early spring day. I had always wanted a little girl and was just over the moon when the doctor said those words in the delivery room, "It's a girl!" I hardly knew what I was doing when I brought Laura Jane home, but we muddled through.
I see 18 years of history in snapshots in my memory.
The first time I cuddled up with her in the hospital. I curled around my new baby girl, and holding her was the most amazing feeling ever.
The night she threw up her entire meal down the back of my nightgown. We both had a bath, and sat down to nurse again and she dumped the entire meal down the FRONT of my nightgown.
A little, brown-eyed munchkin running around and around and around in circles in the kitchen, laughing maniacally and hysterically. Just for the sheer joy of running.
A three-year old with blond pigtails holding her baby brother, kissing him over and over and telling him he was, "Kissable, kissable, kissable."
The same three-year old pushing Nate in the baby swing, yelling, "You get to go, boy!" while Nate belly laughed.
The pre-schooler who learned a new word at school and came home and told Nate, "You're a little shit."
The sweet kindergartener who fell asleep every afternoon at school and on the long bus ride home.
The same, sweet 6 year old who dragged a chair to the washer and dryer to do all the laundry, because her Mommy was so sick with her next little brother.
The first and second grader who drove me up the wall when we did school together. Oh my Lord, karma has struck and given me a child as stubborn as I am. Both of us, in our separate rooms crying.
The school girl, enjoying life, friends, teachers at her new private school.
The mature-for-her-age request to homeschool again in 6th grade, because she was as sick of girly drama as her mama.
The dedicated way this new teenager plowed through English, Algebra, Spanish, Literature, and graduated from her home study program a year early.
The fearless skier, hurtling down hills, dodging between gates, making Mom so proud and terrified to watch her race, all at the same time. And that skier who hit a patch of ice at the bottom of a course and plowed into a table full of race bibs.
The smart, brave girl who moved to Georgia and weathered the toughest time a child can; the unraveling of her parents' marriage.
Christmases, birthdays, croup, surgery, shopping, laughing, fighting, crying, hugging, snuggling.
Laura leaves for college in less than three weeks. And from that moment on, she's never going to be living in our homes again. She can't pop round the corner to my house after work, or when she needs to talk. Laura will, from this moment on, be in her own life, starting her own story. She will always be a guest, a very welcome guest, a guest who can stay as long as she likes, but a guest in my home, nevertheless.
I hardly know what to do with this kind of a transition. I feel like I've finished a job well done, and yet left so much Undone and Unsaid. Did I teach her everything she needed to know? Was I a good role model? Will she be ok?
Ultimately I have to trust, that like my mom before me, I did the very best I could, with what I had, and that is enough. I am enough. She is enough. I was not the perfect mom, but I was the perfect mom for her. She was not the perfect daughter, but she was the perfect daughter for me.
Laura amazes me everyday with her bravery, her intelligence, her kindness, her maturity, her servant heart. The woman she is as she spreads her wings and flies, I think is more in spite of me, than because of me. I did the best I could to love this precious girl, and God gave the grace for where I was lacking.
How can a mother be so happy and so sad at the same time? So excited and so terrified? So full of joy and so full of pain?
A part of me wants to hang on and never let go, but the "good mom" part of me says, "Spread your wings and fly. You are so beautiful and I am so proud of you. Soar."
Eloquent, my dear. God's blessings on you both!
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