Saying Good-bye

Its 5 a.m. Melissa and Emery have left for the airport. Tears feel like raindrops, freely falling with sad hearts. Its so hard to say good-bye. I know how Melissa feels, I have said good-bye to my mother in just the same way. That mixed feeling of hating to leave, yet anxious to get home to my husband. That pain of leaving "home" the place where your childhood unfolded. Where you played in the yard, hid in a storm, teased your siblings, learned about life, ate so many meals around the table laughing, discussing, and making your first opposing point of view.

The place where you know all the squeaks in the floor. Where the smells are so filled with memories, bread baking, cookies being baked, the smell of the laundry being folded, fresh off the line. This home, will always be a place where you can be yourself, where freedom to be just as you are is real. The love contained in the walls is accepting and warming. I know just how Melissa feels as tears stream down her cheeks. But I also know another feeling, the feeling my mother must have felt, that tug on the heartstrings that makes you feel broken in two for a moment in time. My girl, now grown is going to her own home. I look at her and feel such pride in who she is... I look at her and still see the little girl that climbed up into my lap for a story or just a cuddle. I look at that sweet young woman and feel so full of love, so full of a joy that goes far beyond the word itself. I want to be strong for her and not cry all the tears that fill me. I give her some photos just printed off in the darkness of the early morning, remembrances of this visit home. I want to give her things to take home. "Here is some trail mix", "Do you need some water? " I give her a DVD we both enjoy. I hug her so many times, wanting to squeeze a bit more of her into my heart. Emery is quiet, this quiet man is not ashamed to cry a tear of sadness at such a time and his eyes fill with moistness. His love for his family always visible in his words and deeds and how he hates it when he has to say good-bye to one of his children for a time. I think now about how my mother felt so many times as we hugged at the airport. I stop thinking about that and sink down into my own sadness...I miss my girl already, and its just been a half hour since she walked out the door with her dad.
I know we are blessed to have such love in our family. We love each other but we actually LIKE each other too. Melissa said something to me yesterday that filled me with such warmth, she said to me...."mom, you are such a kind person." I have had many compliments passed my way in life, but this was more. It was praise. It was what I have always wanted my children to see in me, kindness. It is the very thing I have wanted them to learn about life, that kindness is what we should always give away to others. Although she said that to me, I have far to go in being kind 24/7 in my eyes. But it feels like as a mother, my job has been successful. I have taught the lessons I set out to. Now as a Grandmother the lessons continue, the lessons to teach and the lessons for me to learn.

I miss my Melissa....tomorrow we will chat often on the phone and on the computer and I will pray a bit harder for what we all want.... for her and James to be back in Texas.

Its so hard to say good-bye.