Saturday, January 13, 2007

Mama Eagle and the Empty Nest

I watched the red glow of tail lights turn the corner and disappear. The bright moon silhouetted my husband’s solitary form against the neighbor’s garage door. He looked lonely standing in the middle of the road watching our children move out of state. A part of life was changing for us. A part of life I had always dreaded. Now goodbye was a reality and I was waving to a truck that would take my daughter and her husband many miles away. Tears streaming down my cheeks I knew life was taking its natural course, but I was kicking all the way! I did not want them to go. Why couldn’t they stay here? Others have their children living in the same town, they have their grandchildren close and they all live happily ever after…or so it seems.

It has now been five years since that fateful day. I can’t say the pain in my heart is less, but I have resolved to survive with some dignity. The tears are gone and I’m strong because my children need me to be. They want to be with me as much as I want to be with them. I understand that now as the daughter of parents far away.

I can see now that God had a hand in the move. My children have grown in maturity and ministry. The church they work in is their heartbeat. They talk about the wonderful ministries they are involved in, the hours of work they spend for others…for ministry.
I wonder, would they have grown and been so happy in the kingdom of God here? I will never know the answer to that question, but I do have some answers to my own. They couldn’t stay here because they needed to be their own family. They needed to be independent to spread their wings. They needed to fly away from my nest so that they could prepare a nest of their own.

Now I have a grandbaby on the way. Yes, I’m so excited I could scream at the top of my lungs, run around in circles and bump into walls, but I am maturely abstaining from such a response. I just quietly move from day to day, counting each week and looking forward with wide-eyed excitement for the day I will be with my first-born as she delivers her first-born. This is a wonderful Season of my life, and I’m enjoying the trip.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I feel for you, Sister. We only have one son (Jeremy, Age-25), and he is still at home with us. We are glad, but know that someday soon, he will need to leave and find his own way in life. And I do not look forward to that. Neither does my husband. He cried when Jeremy was 18 and had just graduated from high school and left us for 2 weeks on the train to take a trip to Washington. Can you imagine what he will do when Jeremy moves out. We hope he will be in the area, but one never knows. We left the nest at 18 and moved from the Midwest to CA. But it was all part of God's plan.