Tomorrow our second child will leave for an exciting career in a new country. She knows nobody. She has never been to this destination. Though nervous, she is not afraid. She does have a job. She does have a house with roommates who are waiting for her. She will have a network ready to embrace her not only at her work but also at church to which she can immediately feel like she belongs.
We are naturally a little teary tonight at the thought of her departure but very excited for the new opportunities that lay ahead of her. We will miss her sociality. She brightens our day with her wonderful humour and with her thoughtful insights. She has become a sought out companion to her siblings. Our dog thinks she is his girlfriend. We had depended on her for so many things - baking granola bars, running errands, starting dinner, long walks on Sundays.
This isn't the first time she has left home. She volunteered in Mozambique, and Ecuador. She lived away from home for her four years of undergraduate studies. But for the last year she has lived at home where she worked her first year in her profession.
Adult children have some annoying and irritating behaviors to their parents: late and often noisey hours, handbags on the chair in the kitchen, shoes at the front door, and borrowed things that never quite find their way back to their original location. But as they annoy, they also tolerate. This young woman has; however, also tolerated our proclivities too with humor and tolerance. Does a twenty something really need to tell her parents who she is texting? And why?
We are naturally a little teary tonight at the thought of her departure but very excited for the new opportunities that lay ahead of her. We will miss her sociality. She brightens our day with her wonderful humour and with her thoughtful insights. She has become a sought out companion to her siblings. Our dog thinks she is his girlfriend. We had depended on her for so many things - baking granola bars, running errands, starting dinner, long walks on Sundays.
This isn't the first time she has left home. She volunteered in Mozambique, and Ecuador. She lived away from home for her four years of undergraduate studies. But for the last year she has lived at home where she worked her first year in her profession.
Adult children have some annoying and irritating behaviors to their parents: late and often noisey hours, handbags on the chair in the kitchen, shoes at the front door, and borrowed things that never quite find their way back to their original location. But as they annoy, they also tolerate. This young woman has; however, also tolerated our proclivities too with humor and tolerance. Does a twenty something really need to tell her parents who she is texting? And why?
So tomorrow at this time, I will walk into her empty room. I will smell her smells and see little traces of things she didn't have room to pack or didn't consider important enough to take. I will most assuredly feel the emptiness that is her absence. Our children must move out to move forward. They must leave the nest. I know and accept this. But tonight I will tuck her in one last time - wish her sweet dreams and remind her that Heavenly Father and I most assuredly love her. How glad I am that she has been in my nest.
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