Launching Day

Today is Launching Day: the day my oldest peep has finally fledged the nest. Since the moment that Chris was born, I knew that this day would eventually come. In fact, his whole life has been lived in successful preparation for it … yet somehow it always seemed so far away. But now here it is … a 24-year blink-of-an-eye later, and the Big Departure Moment has finally come and gone. My husband reminds me that we’ve been luckier than many parents, in that we’ve had Chris in our household for 6 years longer than most families get to enjoy their children’s company. At the age of 18, Chris chose to become an entrepreneur and has been an integral part of our family business here at the Lodge. Not only that, but as a home schooled family, we have spent nearly 24 years of uninterrupted quality time with him, experiencing some outrageous adventures together. Our family motto, emblazoned over the Lodge door, reads: “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Yes, it has been … and it still IS! When families share such meaningful and wonderful experiences over so many years, the act of finally ‘letting our children go’ is, contrary to what you might think, actually a very easy and natural process. Such as when I said good-bye last fall to Noah, who was starting his first year at Johns Hopkins University. It was actually a joyful, happily anticipated moment, knowing that he was meant to be exactly there and that this was the next step in his amazing young life. Noah however, will be migrating home tomorrow for the summer, unlike Chris, whose departure this morning was a permanent, never-to-live-home-again, Milestone Event. He will be getting married this time next year to a wonderful woman named Elizabeth, and we couldn’t be happier with our soon-to-be- new daughter and their commitment to one another.

In light of all this, there is much occasion for joy here today. So why am I feeling so weird? I can’t explain it! I’m actually pretty surprised by it, in spite of the fact that it was definitely time for him to fly. Long past that time, I might have said quite often over the last several months. In preparation for this separation from the home apron strings, nature’s instincts kicked in, and Chris and I have recently had some uncharacteristic differences of opinion … some battles even. It was virgin territory for us, but I see it now as part of that inevitable separation process, the defining of ‘self’ that young people must go through on their way to becoming autonomous adults. Maybe the closer you are to your children, the harder the separation process. Recently on Mother’s Day Chris told me exactly what was in his heart, and what he really thought and felt about me. It was powerful stuff. Sigh …

Today our family’s population may have declined by a member, but we have raised and launched an amazing person. He’s also given us another (soon-to-be) daughter-in-law. The whole world lays before him. But who am I kidding?! While I may try to puff up some fancy words about how easy it was to say good-bye and about how great I’m feeling right now, I find some other stuff going on that's symbolic of a bit more pain than I anticipated. For the first time in more than 2 years I think I am beginning to get sick; I feel the early signs of a cold coming on. Also, a cold sore has suddenly taken up residence on my upper lip; an itchy red rash is adorning my forehead, and for some reason my eyes won't stop watering. Then there's that bout of eczema that has just flared up on my elbow … and we all know that Eczema speaks louder than words! I think there's more going on here than meets the eye!