The Wrong Crayons

Photo taken by Number 2

I looked at her across the dinner table the other night and commented, “How can it be that you are graduating already?  I remember just the other day you were starting your first day of kindergarten and I was starting my first year as a teacher.  I had to drop you off quickly and then rush back to my classroom to open the door for my own students.” 

She smiled and laughed, “I remember I had the wrong crayons!” 

Tonight, at 6:30, my oldest will be graduating from high school.  She will be marching with her best friend since 7th grade.  In a week she and this BF will be going to see the Broadway production of The Lion King together as a gift to both of them, from her BF’s parents. In less than three months, this oldest daughter of mine, will be packing up her things, loading them in my car and heading north to attend a reputable private university where she will study political science, literature and music.  She hopes during her undergraduate years to study abroad in Great Britain where she can study the Parliamentary System.  Yes, she already has plans to attend law school.  Somehow it appears she survived having the wrong crayons.

Also taken by Number 2

When she and each of my children were born, I was aware that the time would fly quickly till they were grown.  I never  regretted the sleepless nights, the laundry, the fatigue.  While I didn’t always enjoys these difficulties and challenges,  I always knew they wouldn’t be my little babies for long, and I was grateful they were each, in turn, healthy and bright.  While there have been moments during the teen years where I wished I’d planned better, especially since becoming a single mom, I’ve never regretted my children or what it has taken to parent them.   I haven’t always felt I was Mother of The Year, and, indeed, I haven’t always behaved like Mother of The Year, though I have done my best.  I haven’t always been able, due to shortages of time, energy and money in recent years, to do all that I wanted to do and this has disappointed me greatly.  I’ve always been aware, that time is passing quickly and they will someday be grown and on their own.  I have never wished the time would hurry up and pass (though I have wished at points I could be doing more or better for them in so many ways).  In spite of all that, things have turned out pretty well. Now, my first is moving into her own, passing through her own rites of passage and I cannot believe that the time has passed so quickly (even though I knew it would). 

Number 1 Graduates Tonight!

Tonight, I will see her walk with her best friend to recieve a piece of paper that is her first step toward completing many of the goals she has for herself.  It will mark a big change in her life.  She will no longer be a high school student.  She is no longer my little girl totally dependent upon me for survival.  Though she is still dependent in some ways, she is beginning to spread her wings and fly the coop. 

I am so excited for her.  A wonderful adventure lies ahead for her called, “Her Adult Life!”  I am excited that she is heading out far more prepared and thoughtful about the adventure ahead than I was.  I am so very proud of her.  She is a wonderful person, a caring individual, intelligent, thoughtful, passionate, creative and witty.  She is determined, competent, and self-motivated.  She is also deeply spiritual but not in a confined,dogmatic, legalistic and narrow sort of way.  She has her convictions but she is kind and tolerant and open to considering many different perspectives.  She is also comfortable in her own skin and unafraid.  These last two qualities about her I am most proud of.  It was my goal that my children not be as fearful about life as I was and that they have more confidence than I did.  So far, it seems that this has been the case.

Number 1 will graduate tonight with honors.  She will also graduate with honors that cannot be seen or earned by an institution.  They are honors that are grown and developed internally in the heart of a person. 

As Number 1 ventures out into the world and makes her own life, I can assure you she won’t be doing it with the wrong crayons!