Our Baby's in College

I think I'm in shock - that's kind of how it feels. Today at noon we drove away from the Linfield campus after helping Hannah get all 5 suitcases, a small refrigerator and an assortment of "must haves" into her dorm room. I made her bed up with the new linens we purchased a couple of weeks ago - that felt like a good mom thing to do. I truly felt like the momma bird pushing the baby out of the nest as I tried to get us all to leave while she was complaining that she didn't know where to go to meet with the cross country team and we "obviously" didn't want to help her. We did help her connect with her coach and then kissed and hugged her one last time. I'm excited for her, I know she'll do well, I miss her terribly, I'm weeping as I write.

A few minutes ago I wandered into her impeccably neat room and wondered how 18 years could go so fast. I knew it would and told myself it was going fast but still wasn't prepared for the shock of knowing that this would now just be her vacation home. Her, while I'm not somewhere else, home. I saw on a curriculum website that we only have 940 weekends with our children and then it starts counting them down saying, "if your child is in Kindergarten you have 636 left, if your child is in 3rd grade you have 468, 9th grade - 208 and if your child is a senior, you already know how few you have left." I'm right there and it's causing me to be both grateful for the incredible privilege of being her mom and indescribably sad for all the ways that I've let her down.

I wanted to be the perfect mom, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) there is no such being. So I did the best I could and always tried to point her to God. Since the time she was very little I always told her how much her dad and I love her - "tons and tons," and then quickly followed it with "but you know Who loves you even more than we ever could? God! (or Jesus)"
Now as I think of her in her dorm room alone (her roommates won't come for another 10 days since she's running cross country) I take much consolation in knowing that she isn't really alone -she has the Father, Son and Spirit with her.

In this age of nannies and daycares and early preschool I find myself wanting to say to every parent that I meet - do you know what an amazing gift that child is? Do you cherish the moments - even the tough ones? Do you treat every day as an adventure and are you quick to mend the broken places in your relationship? No one does this parenting gig even close to perfectly but I trust that the good outweighs the bad and that "love covers a multitude of sins."
So here I sit, in the dark, feeling the weight of 18 years of responsibility being shifted to a beautiful young woman who stole a big piece of my heart and is now walking around with it - outside of my body. Here's to you, Hannah Ruth Greider, have a fabulous first year of college.