THE PAGES of LIFE

It was a small thing, his body quietly sitting in the passenger seat beside me, fluid breaths, eyes drifting aimlessly. But in the moment it felt weighty.

How many times had he sat in the same place? How many times before had our car followed the same well-worn path?

As we passed the field he made a comment about the horses in their coats. Horses in coats, horses in coats. It was a common refrain from days passed, proof that the little boy was still in there somewhere.

In a wave I realized it was the little boy I missed.

Now with his own license and car, my time as chauffeur is narrowing to a close. It is a beautiful thing watching him grow, looking up at the one who now towers over me in height, seeing the man emerge where once there was only boy.

But in that moment sitting in the car it felt like the closing of a season, like the dimming of a once bright light, like a shaking of the ground where my feet once felt so steady.

It felt like pain.

It felt like mourning.

I knew enough when he was younger to tell myself I would miss this someday. The over and over and over again driving to school and practice and back and forth, when I felt the mundaneness of it all I reminded myself I would miss it someday. But one never really understands the weight of reality until it is experienced.

Knowing I would miss these moments with my son has proven not to be the same as actually missing them.

His presence in my car, his quietness and measured words, his body and posture as he exits the passenger door - I am actually missing them.

A friend recently reminded me of the need to mourn the seasons of our children’s lives as they pass, of the importance of recognizing that something is lost when we can no longer engage in that moment in time. In my desire to be strong I wonder if I have missed these places of grief, or at least pushed them off into some future stockpile.

I realize now there is wisdom in allowing space for the moments of sadness before they compile into mountains of pain, that mourning small really does matter. The season I sit in today will too drift into memories of the past, once again closing a chapter as the story of life is written. 

Will I stop long enough to at least notice the pages turn? 

Will I allow room for the emotions I do not want to feel so I can turn toward a future I long to embrace?

In the hand-over-hand climbing of the rope of life, the release of what we once held is inevitable and healthy, but that does not mean it comes without pain. It does not mean it comes without a feeling of loss. As one hand reaches upward there is an awareness of what is left behind and we are wise to give ourselves permission to engage the mourning.

May we let the tears of moments passed fall in order to water the ground of moments yet to come.

My son, I will miss these days with you.