How Quickly They Pass

The years...

It was October 2002, just 17 years ago. Saying it seems like it was SO LONG ago.... but living it, it happened yesterday. Yesterday, I gave birth to Stevie Lynn. Yesterday, I took her to Kindergarten for the first time. Yesterday, she graduated 8th grade. Yesterday was her last first day of grade school. But Thursday? October 17th? Thursday will be the last day I celebrate a birthday with my "little girl." Thursday she'll be 17. Next year? Next year I'll be "celebrating" her adulthood. Dear Lord, just typing it puts the biggest lump in my throat.

I was asked once, when Stevie was younger and before I was married, what the hardest part of single parenting was. My answer, was that I had no one to share her milestones with. When she bursted out in those uncontrollable infant giggles, there was no one to catch the love that spilled over from my heart. When she got her first tooth, rolled over, crawled, or walked for the first time... no one was around to love those moments as much as me. Carrying all of that happiness was HEAVY!

Now that I've survived single parenting... and I've had the love of my life to share my girls with since Stevie was 3... the hardest part of parenting, hands down, is learning to let go. And it starts so much earlier than Senior year of high school. It starts at age 8, when your child tells you that the sparkly shorts (that she would have LOVED a week earlier) are now too sparkly. Or that the overalls your daughter wore to school religiously were no banned from her wardrobe because a child called her farmer girl. It starts at age 11 when your middle schooler is learning to find who she truly is... when she develops a love of a certain taste of music or a certain style of clothing that you might not necessarily agree with but must embrace because it's your job as a parent to support certain choices and choose battles wisely.

Learning to let go is such a delicate dance. You don't want to give too much freedom too early because you're still worried so much about their safety and their maturity and they're ability to handle the independence and responsibility that they crave. It's urging your senior to apply for scholarships without focusing so hard that you ultimately drive her into a negative mindset where she wants to forget college all together. It's reiterating the importance to your 12 year old that she's in 6th grade now and math class requires a little studying if she intends to pass... and learning to walk away and let her either study or fail and learn from that mistake. It's NOT giving up on your 9 year old because she's the youngest and you're just too tired to care anymore!

The hardest part of parenting is not the loss of sleep and the financial instability that accompanies diapers and formula and daycare... The hardest part is YOUR test at the end... where your children are facing finish lines right and left and you're standing there waiting to see if they'll cross them and keep running or if they'll fall short and need you to pick them up and dust them off so they can try again. It's loving... not too much but just enough that they will always want to come back for more. The hardest part is having to do all of this without a book of instructions... but rather just by tasting, and feeling, and praying. Praying that you'll get it right eventually.

Steady Wings

…and oh, here it is… the struggle and heartbreak of watching you steady yourself on your wings. Your feathers are ready, your fuzz has faded all away… I can do nothing more than stand back and support you with encouraging words and urge you to try. Just try. Keep trying.

                In October, you turned 16. It was SUCH a privilege for me as a parent to be able to afford a vehicle for you. As a parent, there are goals in life that we make for ourselves… one was to take you to Disney World when you turned 5 (little did I know it’d be Disney PARIS that you got to see!) Another was to make sure you got a car on your 16^th birthday. I also knew that with that car, I’d want you to embrace responsibility and appreciate it much more than I appreciated my first car. I wanted you to feel the pride of earning it/paying for it yourself. I wanted you to know what hard work felt like, because it feels good. So, while we made the initial purchase, we left room for you to pay on a loan with a paycheck that we’d encourage you to pursue started the day of your 16^th birthday.

                It was such a delicate dance… I needed you to know that getting a job was important. I wanted you to know that it wasn’t so much that we needed the help of your contributions to your own expenses (because we can afford those.) I was watching you in your shy and introverted state, afraid to encounter people and conversations with strangers for fear of everything. I wanted you to find confidence and power in your life. I knew, my love, that you would be just fine. I was also terrified that I’d push you too hard and rather than embrace all I was trying to help you achieve, I’d just turn you away from me.

                That day in the parking lot, when I took you to your first job interview… It was such a piercing blow to my heart to see that tear roll down your cheek and your voice crack when you said “Mom, I can’t go in there.” I wanted to drive you quickly away from there and cover you in the comfort of your blankets and hug you and tell you that I understood and I’m sorry. I also knew that running from your fears was the last thing you needed and I had to stand my ground and urge you to get out of the car and go in! I watched as that blonde headed guy approached you as you waited and told you to smile, that everything would be okay. I whispered to God in that moment and asked Him to calm your fears and if it was His will, to bless you with this opportunity to grow.

                The day you shared the news with me that you’d gotten the job, was overwhelming! I truly know what it is to feel my cup runneth o’er. It spills out my eyes and down my cheeks and with every beat of my heart it just keeps coming! I felt privileged that you took me out, alone with you to share the news with me first – before anyone else. As if you knew that maybe I was the only person in the whole world who would celebrate that moment with you the most. My God, I love you!

                Those first weeks of employment, I watched you slowly emerge from your shell. Each new day that you went in, you walked a little taller until the day came when you didn’t need to linger in the passenger seat for those extra minutes.

                December came, and with it the pending date for your driving test. We practiced and planned and prayed and that first time came and we showed up early and I crossed my fingers so tight while you were out with the instructor and when you came back and she said you’d gotten some things wrong – we were both so disappointed. You were SO excited about being able to drive to school and take your friends to lunch and I was SO EXCITED for your independence. It was ok, though… We both agreed it was safer to find these mistakes now and approach them with caution and treat them as a learning experience and come back in a week. The second time you tested you were much more confident and ready and you passed with flying colors. Now you’re driving yourself to and from school and to and from work and to and from events like the carnival, and movies with friends, and the mall. You… you’re flying.

                Tonight, late at night while all the world is sleeping and I’m hidden away in my small room here at work, I thought to myself that you’re needing me less, and it was a sharp ache in my chest. I thought how even if I wanted to, for old times’ sake, take you to school… you’d decline because you’d want your car available for lunch with friends. I think sometimes about how you’ve got 1 year left of high school. Sometimes I walk by your room in the house and imagine what it’s going to be like to not see you in your bed because you’ll be in your own apartment or doom room for college… Sometimes I wonder if you truly know just how much I love you.

                There was a time in my life when I wrote poetry. The last poem I ever wrote was for you. “I cannot write for you. Nor can I write about you, for you are my poem. You are the perfect combination of words that I could never find. No man-made definition could ever describe you or tell your story. God told me a secret once in the form of a life. He named her Stevie. It was the best secret I’d ever heard.”