Letting Go

As parents we should be seasoned at letting go of a child. When the moment comes along it is so hard. We have had so much practice too - letting go of a hand so they can run to the playground, watching them get on the school bus for Kindergarten, sending them off to camp, handing them the keys to the car, and more. Every day of their lives we let them go a little bit so they can become the humans they are meant to be.

This season of letting go is especially hard.  The season of sending a child off to college.  It's a "milestone" and a "right of passage".  We were all "let go" to venture out on our own and begin to be independent and find our own way. It is time for them to begin a new  phase of their own journey.

It's an exciting and scary thing all wrapped up in one moment.  No one feeling this more than the one leaving - it is their journey after all.  We are spectators now.  Engaged in the game only when the ball flies our way or when needed to sing the chorus of a song.  

This beautiful written word by Kahlil Gibran sums it all up for me as my husband and I are getting ready to send our youngest, and only daughter, off to college.  It never gets easier by the way.  It was hard letting go of them all. Fear of the unknown I guess.  Will they be safe? The biggest fear.

Enjoy these insightful and remarkable words.

Let the arrow find it's way and the archer never loose sight of it's flight.

Magda

On Children by Kahlil Gibran Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.