A very dear friend who's daughter is in her first year of college recently wrote me about going to Parents Weekend and feeling like a visitor in her daughter's life. The phrase struck me as inevitably sad, nostalgic, laden with loss and resignation. Their lives, lived so closely for so long, have at last separated, as they must for each to travel on. The distance between them will shape and change them both, their relationship is likely to bend and sway as time passes - some ties will be stronger, others may be weaker - but each will be better for it.
Still, the sadness lingers for the past, for the bonds between them, for all a mother invests in the raising of a child, for the shared memories and experiences, for the special intimacy that can exist between a mother and daughter. Never having been a mother, I don't know for sure, but I suspect that there will be more bitter sweetness to come - the child will fall in love, marry, have children of her own. And each crossroad she comes to alone will make her mother proud as well as sad. Her leaving has left an empty space in an empty house and a silence where once there was a happy noise.
Some changes in life are subtle and gradual, slinking up behind us ever so softly and taking hold so slowly we don't notice. Some are sudden, wrenching and loud, caving in our complacency with a crash and demanding our attention. Somewhere in between, children grow up and become young adults striking out on their own with no thought of failure or fear or hesitation, only a need to be on their own in a world bright with promise and adventure.
Visitation rights are granted to the ones who are loved.
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