Perhaps my greatest regret in life is that I didn’t further my
education. I have no one to blame but myself. I chose a working world
after high school that was soon followed by marriage and children, in a
time when women were just truly beginning to realize and exert their
equality.
And so, it has been my greatest joy to guide my first two children
through college, all the while yearning for what I now know I should
have experienced. And this May, for the second time, I will witness one
of them accepting a degree, exceptionally deserved and richly earned.
Yet
this one graduation will be bitter sweet, subsequent to the tragedy in
Blacksburg, Virginia, and the knowledge that there are parents, who up
until April 16th were filled with the same hopes and dreams
as I, and now will never get to experience this moment.
What is this world coming to?
This is my son, and I will be filled with memories of him. The
perfect baby who hardly ever cried, slept when he was supposed to and
was always content. My child who smiled easily, the one that I carried
everywhere, until I could carry him no more. The boy who cried for me
each and every day of pre-school.
The one that the pre-school teacher said was academically behind his
peers and certainly not ready for kindergarten, who, years later,
graduated high school in the top ten of his class.
The boy that hit home runs time after time out of the Chestnut Street
field then brought them each home, inscribed them with the date and
lined them up neatly in his room.
The boy who became the best baby sitter in the world when he was ten
and Sam was born, changing dirty diapers and all. The one who quickly
became Sam’s hero, and still carries that position to this day.
The child who cried to come home from his first sleep over at a
friend’s house, and later went off to college without a second look
back.
Of my three, he is the one that is most like me.
As parents, we are always letting go. From those first few steps
holding onto our fingers, to letting go and walking alone, to refusing
to hold your hand anymore in public. Learning to ride a bike, starting
school, driving a car, graduating high school, heading off to college
and getting married are the normal progression of events, and each takes
them farther from you. Yet there is a tug at the heart, each time you
let go.
And so, it makes it all the more difficult to comprehend what other
families are facing now, as they let go of their children forever. And
while I cannot understand what they are feeling, I grieve with them, as
we all should.
And for them, I will sit amongst the other parents, bursting with
pride and filled with memories as we witness our sons and daughters
going out into their futures. I will offer up a prayer for their
protection from this crazy world, and I will hesitate at letting go,
once again.
