Love them, Let them Go

In the wake of the tragic loss of 33 lives at Virginia Tech this week I find myself wondering what it would be like to be a mother who has to travel by plane, not to visit her college student at school, but to collect her child's remains?

Yesterday as CNN put a face to some of the 33 killed, it broke my heart to know that so many bright young people had been lost and those young people have left families and friends behind. But as a mother, I saw them as women's children. Children who were unexpected pregnancies but a joy throughout their lives nonetheless. Children whose parents wondered if they would get through their teens alive to even see high school graduation. Children who made cards and gifts for their mothers on Mother's Day when they were young.

Mother's Day. Imagine having lost your child in the Virginia Tech tragedy with Mother's Day in less than a month.

This kind of imagining has become a habit for me since February 23, 2001, after becoming a mother myself. The Columbines, Virginia Techs, kidnappings, cancers, even car accidents that claim young people long before their time...that has to become my worst fear of all. Losing my children.

Fear has gripped me all of my life, for some reason or another, but I work hard at letting my kids do things, see things, and enjoy life. It takes a lot for me to push fear out of my mind when Nas, who weighs all of 32 pounds, plays at McDonald's Playland with older elementary kids.

"What if he falls in there, he could get trampled?" I ask Babe.
"He's a big boy, he'll be fine," Babe responds.

And for whatever reason (thank You God) my son would come running and laughing toward me every few minutes as if to say, "see mom, I'm okay!" After looking at my kids and begging God to let them live long, prosperous, healthy lives it was like He tapped me on the shoulder and said, "see mom, they're okay."

So for the past 6 years and two months I have practiced loving my kids and letting them go, because it's inevitable. We don't have babies to keep them babies forever, we have them so we can put all the good in them we can possibly cram in in the 18 years we get to keep them close, then we have to let them go. Life will be good to them, it will be cruel to them, but as long as I do my part as their mother while I can, I'll have birthed wonderful people to 'let go' into the world. And isn't that all any mother wants?