Letting Go- A Mother's Day Thought

I had missed seeing them for sometime because I had been going in to work later, but this morning I hit the corner of Circle and Walnut just in time. As I stopped at the light, I watched as the little Asian boy in his white hooded sweatshirt bolted across the crosswalk in front of my car. His short legs moved as fast as they would carry him and his small frame, ladened with a heavy blue backpack, leaned far over his tennis shoes, almost as if he was deterimidly fighting a headwind. But it was a lovely morning, and there was no more than a slight morning breeze. But something was terribly amiss; and then I saw her. The same lovely, petite Asian mommy that I would always see walking her son to school each morning. But now she she was standing alone near the crosswalk, leaning against the sign and stretching her neck as she anxiously poised herself to dart out to save him in case any danger threatened to overtake him. He made it safely across and continued at top speed towards the school only to ever so briefly turn his head to catch her eye as if to say, "I'm o.k. Mom."

And so it is with mothering (and fathering). There is a season for handholding and going the path with them, and there is a time to let go. There comes a day when they don't physically need us to cross the street, or for that matter the world. And, that's precisely one of the goals of parenting. But we are forever vigilant to watch, to care, to pray, and to hope that they take a minute to make contact and let us know that they are "o.k".