Last night, I missed you already.
As I packed your lunch. As I wrote a little note on your napkin. As I double checked your backpack.
My heart inexplicably ached…
Until I realized that when I pack her backpack for the first day of the third grade, you will be seventeen going on eighteen.
Sizing up the world and all its possibilities. Making life and faith and love your own. Jumping into adulthood in the way you have bashed through childhood…
Feet first and determined.
So I just missed you.
I missed your smile. I missed your wit. I missed your nighttime hugs.
I missed your tender spirit. I missed your sweet love notes. I missed your “always-thinking-of-others” heart.
I missed it all as I breathed in the last eight-and-a-half years of knowing you.
And it was then I missed the “little” you for awhile…
With pigtails and bows and dress-up clothes.
With twirlies and mama’s heels and “lipschtick.”
With nighttime snuggles and warm little sleepers and the newness of parenthood.
But then I remembered the reason, the rhyme and the rhythm of this mamahood dance…
That with every year, every phase, every chapter…
I get to see you become who you were created to be…
A beautiful soul that is itching to change the world in true “Grace Elisabeth” fashion…
With the love and care and kindness and justice you know He sings.
And all of a sudden my sadness turned into anticipation.
Anticipation of the next chapter together.
The gift, the joy, the privilege of watching you fly.
It is why today as you turned to wave a final goodbye, there were only momentary tears.
Stopped short by the next chapter and my sudden urge to yell, in true crazy, off-the-hook, mama fashion,
“ GO ON AND FLY, BABY GIRL!!! FLY!!!!”
