I am posting this later than usual because I drove to Earlham College yesterday evening (about an hour and a half away) to see my son in a play. He is a sophomore and is doing really well there. I will return on Monday to move him out of his dorm for the year because he leaves for Spain in January, a semester abroad. I start with this because I have been thinking about letting go as a mother. I’m starting a new book titled, Birthed by Many Mothers so this theme is running in the background in me.
From the moment Jacob was born and was no longer in my belly and I handed him to his father the letting go began. I could feel this tug inside of me. It surprised me because I was a first time mother and after all I was giving him to his father. Throughout the years I would feel this tug again and again, not always rational I will admit but it was there. I felt it when my kids first ask to walk to the bus stop by themselves, this is one of the no rational times, I told them I knew that they were ready but I wasn’t yet but I would work on getting there. The bus stop was at the corner of our private street. I could have just watched them from the bathroom window without them knowing. Not that I ever did that of course.
Letting them go for over nights with friends and family, realizing that they were having experiences that I not only couldn’t control but sometimes wouldn’t even know about. I’m sure me being an incest survivor didn’t make this any easier. I remember one day going to the Ohio River (I often go to the water when I don’t know what to do) and emptying out all my fear and grief about letting them go and coming to terms with their own journeys here that have nothing to do with me and offering them up to ancestral and divine protection.
For the most part I think I have done pretty well, I would probably give me a B if I were grading myself but now another challenge because that's what life does. I get to send my son to Spain for five months and again I will offer him up to ancestral and divine protection.
Quanita