Indulge me as I engage in some therapeutic verbal processing of my many emotions through this summer filled with change in our lives, particularly the last 72 hours.
As I type I am
sitting in our VRBO condo in Clemson, SC, having moved my third child into her freshman
year dorm on campus two days ago, and knowing that today we will get in the car
and drive the 8-9 hours back home without her. The build up to this weekend has been fun—lots
of shopping, planning for dorm supplies, time together, family nights and
special meals together—but also so bittersweet.
During the last few days at home, small things would nearly undo me—like
bringing her empty laundry hamper up from the basement and realizing it
wouldn’t get filled up with dirty clothes for a few months, or sorting through
her bedroom to help her pack for college and donating items that represent her
childhood, now over.
There is something so very unnatural about taking a child—a
child born in your heart, a child you travelled halfway around the world to
bring into your life, a child you spent countless days and hours in hospital
rooms caring for and praying over, a child you coached and discipled and
counseled as she navigated all the stages of childhood, adolescence, and into
early adulthood—and then driving her 500 miles away only to return home without
her.
You might think that having two older children who have
already navigated this transition to college would make this weekend’s
experience easier for me, but honestly, I think it actually has made it
harder. Because I have already
experienced the dramatic shift that is now underway, I know that something so
very precious is now over and will never be quite exactly the same again. Even though I know she will come home to
visit or can even return home to live with us (our second-born returned to live
at home this summer, more than a year after college graduation, in an attempt
to save some money,) I still am aware that the parent-child relationship is now
undergoing an indelible change.
I also know this is a good thing, and I know that her desire
to go away to school means that I have done my job and that she is ready for
this next chapter. Make no mistake, I am
so very proud and excited for her. And I
am so excited to watch her grow in independence, build a new community, learn
new things, and follow the path God has planned for her. I will be her most ardent cheerleader,
admirer, and prayer warrior. And I know
that my relationship with my grown children can still be close and life-giving,
with new layers and facets.
But the grief is real.
The raw emotions of my heart today are only heightened by
the fact that earlier in the summer we celebrated Tom’s military retirement
after 31 years of service to the US Air Force, with his subsequent (and
currently still ongoing) terminal leave, meaning he is at home full time right
now looking for the next job, the earlies start time for which is still 6-8
weeks away. It’s been a summer filled
with togetherness, which has been a gift, but it just makes this departure even
starker.
Looking ahead, the future is filled with many unknowns; indeed,
whether we’re in the midst of the mundane or the momentous times of life, this
is equally true. But some seasons make
that reality starker and more poignant.
This is such a season.
As we wonder what the coming months hold for Tom’s career,
for our college girl as she blazes her new trail, or even for my youngest as
she enters her senior year of high school and we evaluate what her options will
be for life after her own high school graduation, we are trusting our good God
to lead and direct us. I am so very
grateful for His faithfulness and His provision for us through other past
seasons of change and chaos. I am
grateful for dear friends and family who love us, pray for us, and remind us of
our good heavenly Father who never changes, and who is sovereign over the
changes in our lives.
17
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
James 1:17
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