Those long good-byes <3
Russ and I have been noticing all the pictures of parents standing in various college dorms and apartments after unloading all the necessities and many extras to move their child into a new phase of life.
And we can draw from our experience and we know the long car ride home, the tears, the excitement and the empty places around the house that echo with the ones who no longer grace the dinner table or fill the hamper or leave toothpaste in the sink.
Somewhere in all the stacks of papers saved, I have a copy of a liturgy prayer that we read when we left Sarah for her freshman year at Greenville. There was a portion the students prayed and then a portion the parents prayed and one line has stuck with me and carried me through the many years since.
“We will give each other permission to live increasingly separate lives.”
I still struggle with that and I have to ask for help and balance a lot, even though a decade has passed between our last one graduating college and today.
To live increasingly separate lives and yet to stay connected strong and firm in the heart is a dance. And the opening steps occur as we leave our child waving on the sidewalk outside a dorm and head back to the place they called home for eighteen or so years without them.
It doesn’t mean we no longer stay in touch, it doesn’t mean we don’t keep each other posted in general on the comings and goings of bigger things. But it does mean that the every day, day to day is increasingly separated. And yet the heart of the parent longs to be reconnected.
I think that is why I loved and remembered that word “increasingly.” Because it is a process. And it is two sided. The child lets go just as much as the parent. And as parents, we once again help and guide and counsel, as we slowly step back and give them space to try their wings.
So the statement becomes a prayer in the early years and resurfaces often as jobs and marriage and choices and circumstances bring about the inevitable answer to what started as a decision. To give them permission to be happy seeking a separate life from you.
Giving each other space to grieve and process and hold onto the memories that belong to each individual. Letting go of the child and then receiving the adult they have become.
A dance.
For sure.
And one that is sometimes awkward, but always worth the time and energy to continue.
God bless you moms and dads as you wipe the tears and make your way back home. God bless your young’uns as they battle the surprise of a twinge of homesickness and the thrill of having their own place to navigate.
May God wrap His arms tightly around you and hold you all – because when you are in His hands, you are always close and that is a comfort that overcomes everything else.