Dear Graham,
I dropped you off for your first day of preschool this morning. When I caught a glimpse of your profile, with your little blue backpack perched on your shoulders and your head with its cowlicky curls (combed, for once), my stomach did one of those renegade back flips.
You’ll only be gone a couple of hours, I know. But as I watched you march toward your own adventures, apart from me, I felt like I was standing at the top of a huge sledding hill. Once we start, gravity and velocity will inevitably take hold, and there will be no turning back, no slowing down. As I waved goodbye, your future flashed before my eyes—your first overnight away from home, your first solo drive, your first day of college. And me waving from the driveway, quelling the back flips in my stomach.
In the four years I’ve been your mama, I’ve been learning something about the mysterious tether that connects me to you. When you were an infant, you were tied to me by a literal cord; you went everywhere I went. When you were a newborn, you were, in a real sense, tied to my breast. As you grew, the tether extended to the carrier I strapped you in when we went on walks and made dinner together.
These days you still like to hold my hand, but I’m all too aware that this connection may be mere blinks from extinction. Already you are straining for microfreedoms. Already you are faster than I am. Already you aspire to go places I cannot go.
I am tempted to make grand promises as you step into your world apart from me:
I will protect you.
I will keep you safe.
I will fight off any would-be bullies.
I will make sure you have someone to play with.
I will always be there for you.
But of course I can’t promise those things. I can’t always be with you—and I shouldn’t.
And then I remember there is a better promise.
“Hold out your hand,” I say to you, my brown-eyed boy. And one by one, I take your fingers, reminding you of the One who will never leave you: I. Am. Always. With. You.
I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.
Psalm 73:23
I (thumb)
am (pointer finger)
always (middle finger)
with (ring finger)
you (pinkie)
It is a promise you can hold in your hand, even after I’m gone. A tether that can never be broken.
As I head home, my vision blurry, I carry the promise in my hand too, my own umbilical cord: I. Am. Always. With. You.
You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart . . . I’ll always be with you.
Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh (A. A. Milne)
How can it be,Stephanie, that your brown-eyed boy can already be going off to preschool? Wasn’t it just yesterday we chatted at the NCWA Renewal Conference?
Just so you know, today’s truth applies even when our kids are all grown up. It applies to them and it applies to their mamas.
God bless you, sweet mama-friend, as you cling to the one who holds you by your right hand, the almighty God. What a precious reminder that he is always with us.
What a beautiful reminder, Ginger! I’m so thankful for mom-friends who are a few steps ahead on this parenting journey!
What a day! I cannot believe it has been that long. So crazy. I used to work at a pre-school and it might assure you to know that 1)preschool is very fun 2) it is also hilarious and 3) Mom and Dad are still their whole world. The kiddos have loads of fun, learn important friendship lessons like “friends don’t bite”, and then when pick-up time rolls around are all looking eagerly with bright little eyes for Mom and Dad so that they can tell them every adventure! As a mother in a different spot on this motherhood journey (mine are all teenage boys) I can affirm that you are so correct. They grow in a blink of an eye. But each step is beautiful and terrifying and an adventure of its own. I rode with my seventeen-year-old as he drove a stick shift on the highway for the first time last week and clutched the “scardy bar” while my fifteen-year-old drove at night on the highway for the first time. I watched my thirteen-year-old help his dad repair our tent and watched them all making buildings in the sand in a race before the waves came to wash them away. I have to remember that each grumpy sigh and eye-roll is a gift. They are all here, in our home, for such a short time. Oh, how we love them!
What wise words. Beautiful and terrifying…that sums up being a boy-mom pretty well!
This was beautiful! As I take my son to his first day of Pre-School, I will remember this.
All the mama blessings on you as he (and you) mark this new beginning.