A Big Letting Go

Our youngest is engaged. My husband and I are thrilled with our daughter’s excitement and declaration of commitment with her now fiancé. She is happy, and our family’s been whirling in celebration mode since the proposal. All is good. Since the good news announcement, I find my thoughts hijacked while sipping morning coffee. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I’ve come to realize this significant letting go is catching me by surprise.  

I remember the day she was born. My husband and I always say it was the best day of our lives, not because she was more special than the others, but she completed the others. The youngest of four. We had the fortune of knowing when our family was whole. I never minded sleepless nights. I couldn’t wait until she woke from naps. As the others stepped on the bus towards school, we were left to walk home, hand in hand, ready to tackle the day with the ordinary. Laundry, library, and grilled cheese lunches. Nothing earth shattering. My oldest was never late for school, but an occasional tardy arrival to kindergarten for my youngest never seemed like such a big deal. Even now, when my daughter comes to town, we end up at Target or the grocery with a list necessary to cook dinner together. The comfort of our companionship continues to be easy and invited.

Letting go has been a recurrent theme, as many moms know. I’ve had to reset myself in motherhood more than I would have ever imagined. I remember sending my oldest off to college, and just like that, there was a vacuum around the dinner table. The frustration with my boys jumbling clean laundry piles with sweaty soccer socks or kneading my forehead having to listen to persistent adolescent arguments when the answer continued to be “no” are chapters from my maternal archives that create one big story. Now, there is order and quiet in my house most days; a reality never imagined 20 years ago. Letting go.

I remember rolling my eyes when my mom became nostalgic. My younger self felt frustrated when my mom lamented about days gone by. Now, I get it. I guess the bottom line is the stretch of a mother’s love catches us by surprise sometimes. The older I get, the more I understand my mom, but I also hear the voice of my mother-in-law, my other mentor in matters of the heart. “It is what it is,” she’d say. “It’s just how it goes.” Her message? Life moves on whether you like it or not. She was right.  

My daughter and I, regardless of her marital status, will still love being together. We’ll still cook dinner together whenever she visits, and I will exponentially enjoy watching her build a life with the one she has chosen to love forever. I realize my kids’ journey into marriage and family life has the potential to enrich and elevate my relationships with them.

And then there’s the world of grandchildren. If the sum and parcel of letting go is to make space for other little hands to hold, I’m all in. And there you have it. In the expanse of one essay, I’ve traded weighty reflection for exuberant anticipation. As my husband would say, congratulations “Little One.”