Leaving the Nest

The air is warm and humid as a sit on an old wooden bench looking out at children playing at water fountain park.  I watch a small toddler waddles around in her diaper jumping to entertain herself in the splashes she is creating.  In that single moment I am taken back to when my own 3 children use to play in the water.  Running up to the hole in the ground waiting in anticipation for the water to shoot up and hit them in the face.  Laughter, running, squealing with such enthusiasm enjoying the moment.

I remembered this moment like is was yesterday. My whole body felt like it shifted back in time.  I felt a sense of peace wash over me.  The time when life was simpler.  When watching my children play in water brought such joy to my heart.  When life was a little easier to be in the moment.

As I remember this moment I felt a tug on my heart because in a couple days I will leave Vancouver and my first born child who is starting college.  It felt bitter sweet, a tender memory of playing in the water and losing a child to adulthood.  In that one moment I truly got what being a mother was really about in this life.

I put so much energy into raising, preparing, teaching, disciplining and loving my child and then one day they step out of the nest.  As I watch her step forward I am proud, scared, emotional and  excited.  All of these feeling flood me a once.  A slight breeze fills the air as I can feel freedom.  Her freedom to grow on her own without parental guidance, to make her own successes and her own failures and to become into her own.

What a beautiful experience to be able to witness a child’s growth and flight.  The power of true motherhood.  I will forever be on the sidelines cheering her on, hopefully with little judgment and a lot of compassion.  I will watch her soar and become who she choses to be as the experience in her life appear before her.

She come from me and she will go from me.  The miracle of life.