Story Peeps Change Lives

Learning To Let Go...The Story Of A Mother

Member: sweetsgirl

Excitement, joy, the feeling of shear accomplishment was what I felt at that moment. Patting myself on the back “good job Mom, you did great”, I told myself. This moment is one I will cherish for the rest of my life. I hold my breath as I hear her name being called and she walks across the stage to accept her High School Diploma. “Breathe Rachel Breathe” my sister says. As I deeply inhale, it was as though all the years of worry were gone, and the tears start flowing like a river. Never a more proud parent than I that hot summer day. She did what I never could. I did what they all thought I could not. Raise a child on my own and teach her not to be a product of her environment. To take all life's lessons and make the best of them. To reach for the stars and grasps them with both hands. That she alone is responsible for her life and the paths that she now chooses to take as a young woman. 

Anxiety, guilt, loss, sadness is how I felt just a few short weeks later. We are standing in her dorm room. I'm making her bed getting things set up. Make sure you call me everyday, I said. Ma if you call me a million times I won't answer, she says back. Grinning from ear to ear, she is not hiding any of her excitement. I turn around and look, at that moment I catch a glimpse of my little girl. That same face I have seen a million times before. Shy and scared, but ready for the next phase of her life. I start to cry. How can I leave my baby here, in a city all alone? Who will protect her? That day I walked away with a little piece of me left behind. 

Just to think that with all I have taught her from a very young age. That I forgot to teach myself a very important lesson. To learn to let go. To allow her to find her way without me mapping out an escape route. Or maybe trying not to let every imaginable horrible thought race through my head when I haven't heard from her. Part of being an adult is finding your own way. I have attached myself to her and lived vicariously through her. Now I must learn to walk alone. This is a life lesson I will have to learn the hard way. 

A year later, the sadness has morphed into something a little more subtle. Somehow sleeping in her room gives me some sort of comfort. I surround myself with her belongings, her & her friends pictures on the walls, college letters and a bedspread she picked out but barely has slept in since she left. I still miss her on special days and family outings. I even only look to hear her voice once a day now. I can now see things from a different standpoint. Yes I still miss her more than she will ever know. But I can finally live my life to the fullest, knowing I have attained my greatest accomplishment in life. I have confidence that with her being able to see the world through my eyes, as crazy and unstable as it might have been. She now can follow the right path, her own. And now be able to see them through hers. As an intelligent, responsible, mature young woman that I have raised her to be.