Me and my girl, 2002
Today, I went for a walk with my daughter, son, and my daughter’s boyfriend, who was home for spring break. Also, our dog came along, and the neighbor’s big, beautiful Labrador, because my daughter was walking him while they were on vacation. It was warm, sunny day and the six of us made a merry crew. My daughter’s boyfriend is a good fellow. He has been nothing but kind to her and I like him a lot.
Still, I confess, that sometimes I don’t feel ready for this.
She’s been dating him since last summer. Ironically, as her sophomore year ended last year, I looked around and decided that maybe we were going to make it through high school without any boy drama. I was OK with that. So, a few days later, I was surprised when she received an invitation to play tennis with a newly graduated senior. Tennis led to walks in the park and shooting baskets and frozen yogurt. Then, hikes and hamburgers and every spare second together. It was a lovely summer romance. But September came, and as he headed off to college, they did the wise thing and broke up. It was time to move along.
Except, they didn’t. They continued to talk, just as “friends” through autumn. When he came home for Christmas, they started dating again, and have been happily together ever since. My daughter’s circle of people has widened, and I am no longer the center of it. Just so you know, I do not entirely approve of this.
Because she was mine, you see. She was my girl. I carried her around in the Baby Bjorn carrier, tied her shoes, and cut up her food. I held up her head so she didn’t go to sleep in her dinner when we were out too late. I listened to her sing and videotaped her ballet recitals. I helped her with her homework and drove her to school and picked her up from school and listened to her Pandora mix. There has been so much joy.
Now, she drives herself around, and stops at the gas station to fill up the car, and remembers to add oil, and studies for calculus and physics AP tests, and thinks about colleges. She is growing so beautifully, and the days fly by, and she is moving away from me. It is beautiful, and right, and how it is supposed to be. She is not supposed to stay home. She is supposed to go out and hold hands with sweet boys and have a wonderful, blessed, beautiful life. It will not be without struggles. Who could offer her that? But it will be hers. She will live her adventure and write her own story.
And she will do it most of it without me.
It breaks my heart and fills it at the same time.
I am learning in this second half of life that I am not that important, but that it’s OK, because I am loved deeply and wildly and scandalously by a God who is bigger than time. So today, it is enough just to be here on the planet. To walk in the sun with my daughter and her boyfriend and my son and the dogs on a beautiful spring day.
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