May, 2008
Spoiler: sentimentality ahead.
It’s a day when every mistake you’ve ever made comes floating back to haunt you, causing you to wonder if any one of them will prove fatal. I spent the week rehashing every lost temper, every impatient word. Memories of being too busy, too tired, too distracted, too pregnant pricked. The only redeeming thought all week was just to look at my beautiful daughter and, seeing how wonderful she turned out, to realize that I must have done something right.
I spent the last 17 and a half years encouraging independence, and sometimes I wonder if I went too far. My Abby really didn’t need my opinion anymore – she learned to think for herself. She didn’t need my advice – she had learned to surround herself with lots of godly counsel. She didn’t want my hugs since words, not touch, is her love language, and words of praise and encouragement were coming from every direction. I keep telling myself she actually does need all of those and more, and in a few years she’ll come to realize that herself.
Actually, the last three weeks, Abby has suddenly become sentimental. As the realization that she was about to leave home has descended upon her, her independence has done an about-face: she’s been hugging her siblings, taking Anna out to lunch, wanting to just sit and talk. I was soaking it all in. And then it came.
Thursday night she graduated, her exuberant spirit drawn in multi-colors on the top of her graduation cap. She gave a speech, walked across a stage, and suddenly my job as it was known is done. Friday she had her last piano lesson (all those years of driving!!!) followed by an open house where she virtually floated, playing the perfect adult hostess. Saturday morning dawned early as she and her dad packed into a car to drive off to her summer job a thousand miles away. From there she will continue another thousand miles to college at Wheaton in August.
As I gave her my final hug, my heart was ripping out of my body. I released the balloons from the previous night’s party and released Abby as well, hoping and praying that she would fly as high as those balloons, floating with the wind of the Spirit into her future. How could I be so happy for my daughter, for her as she enters into her future as an adult, and yet so sad at the same time? My joy was intertwined with my sorrow to the point that I couldn’t focus for several hours. It was much, much harder than I had expected. And at the same time, I’d not have it any other way.
On the internet news later that day was the photo of a mother sitting by a pile of what had been a building. She sat on a little three-legged stool, clutching a photo of her daughter who was missing, presumably under the collapsed building near Chengdu, China. I wept as I looked at the photo, realizing the crushed dreams of that poor mother. In a country where most families are allowed one child, to lose that child, on whom the hopes of four grandparents and two parents rest, is unimaginable.
Then I read further down the list of headlines and saw another one about the death of Steven Curtis Chapman’s daughter. This incredibly gifted singer, who has blessed hundreds of thousands with his music and thousands more with his pro-adoption ministry, now was facing the most painful thing ever: the death of one child, killed accidentally by another of his children. The horrific magnitude of their pain grabbed at something so deep in my belly that it made me feel ill the rest of the day. I, along with multitudes, listened to the radio stations playing his “Cinderella” song, inspired by his little girl, a song about taking advantage of what time we have because so soon they will be gone. I cried a little while driving. Then I came home and allowed myself to weep like a baby.
How blessed I am to be releasing my daughter to a bright future of living for Christ instead of what these dear parents are facing. As I sat and thought about this, I was reminded of another time a song sent a skewer of conviction into my heart. It was when I was pregnant and didn’t want to be. I don’t remember why I was upset, maybe it was just hormones or maybe it was swollen ankles, but I was driving along spewing off all of my frustration to God. Alone in the car, I yelled, asking Him if He even cared. I drove along quiet for a while and then punched on the radio, bringing up a song I had heard many times before. Apparently, though, I had never heard it before.
It was a song by Twila Paris and it described her releasing her baby back to God after it had died, either through miscarriage or through stillbirth. I realized He was showing me the alternative and found myself crying so hard I had to pull over where I begged God’s forgiveness.
Motherhood has been this way for me – embracing it one moment and being frustrated to the point of wanting to chuck it all the next. Thankfully, God is there to walk with me when I’m experiencing the latter, bonking me upside the head when I need it, reminding me of His gentle graces. The graces that show up in my children. In my Abby.
God bless you, Abby. Keep holding His hand as you now walk and someday as you fly. You’ll do well. Go with grace and joy. I am so proud of you.
Like a rock,
The Submissive Despot
Amy Louise
Amy Shane
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