Tuesday, September 20, 2016

It's Not Nothing...


Today marks exactly 9 months until I'm standing with my husband on a stage to hand our son his high school diploma.  It will mark the end of a 17 year journey of homeschooling for our family.  And it will mark the culmination of a walk that began 18 years ago this coming Friday, when we walked into the birthing center for that unexpected blessing to be born.

I mentioned on my Facebook today that this is like pregnancy, in reverse.  And I've thought about that all day today, as we worked through division problems together and one of us had tears trying to get the concept across!  And then there was laughter as we realized how terribly we communicate. :)  

How many things have I taught him?  
He learned to eat.  He learned to go potty.  He's walking because of our instruction.  He rides bicycles, drives, reads books, showers regularly, talks, does math and science.  He prays and serves the Lord.  He loves to work with his hands and he loves to serve others.  
He can do laundry and has basic cooking skills.  
And so, I'm looking at this 6'3" baby of mine that will make that important walk in 9 months and I'm realizing, "There are only 9 months left, but there's still so much I wanted you to know!"  

When you're expecting a baby, you have 9 months to get prepared for their COMING.  

When you're graduating your child, you have 9 months to prepare for their GOING.

I distinctly remember feeling this way with my first son; not ready, so much that I still wanted him to know before he went off to college or the military or got married, all of which he did within 4 years of graduating high school.  

So, this concept isn't new, but it just seems more final today.  
Maybe because this is my last child?  
Maybe because this means I'll no longer be part of the amazing homeschool support group that we have, where I get to see all my friends when there's a function?  

But maybe it's because I really don't know who "I" am without kids, without homeschooling, without being needed?  
And maybe I'm just a little scared at the next chapter in life?

I'm sitting in that thought.

But I've made a decision to pull back from everything else that I've been involved in over the past few years and just pour myself into my family, particularly my senior, and make sure that I've done the most that God can possibly help me do to turn him loose into this world to make a difference!  

He is an amazing kid, and I don't say that just because I'm his mother.  
He seriously is just a wonderful, delightful, incredible man and I am so very blessed that he calls ME "Mom."

So, as one lady said on a blog I read, but cannot find to link here, 
"It's not a death.  It's not a birth.  But it's not nothing, either.  It's something that deserves to be celebrated, to be grieved over, to be recognized as a passage of time. 
 It's different, it's hard.  
But it's not nothing."

No comments :

Post a Comment