A message from my mom.

As we were preparing to leave a lot of people asked how my mom felt about Sara and I leaving. The day before we left my mom sent me the following email and said I could share it on my blog if I wished. I do wish, and here it is:

Going with the Flow

Departure day is upon us.  At church today, I was reflecting upon the long distance relationships in my life.  My life-long friends, Deb and Carol, each live out of state and have for many, many years.  The distance between us has never been a barrier to the affection between us.  Every connection is instantaneous and brings us right back into one another’s world like as though we never left it. 

My guy, Mark, now lives in Afghanistan.  When this plan was first unveiled, I wondered how in the world I’d cope with such distance in my love life.  And yet, here we are connecting through Skype, texts and email.  His ability to take time off every 3 months allows for the adventure of travel once in a while as well as heightened anticipation of every moment together. 

If it were up to me, would I choose to have my daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren live on the other side of the world?  I thought it was up to me years ago when I warned Lisa that if one day she would announce that she was going to marry, have children and decide to move across the planet, that I’d strap myself to a fast moving train and drive between her and this decision.  It sounded humorous at the time… at least for a moment. 

Time has shaped me to move and grow not so much like a tree with roots that hold it firm and in place, but rather like a river bed with the flow of water moving over it.  There are twists and turns which have formed over time and are now part of the landscape; the journey that carries me along.  The flow of water is constant and for this I am grateful.  There is energy in movement and change that I have found to be life giving.  

As a mother, I’ve learned along the way that in the letting go of our children, in order that they become autonomous adults, the separations are mental, emotional, physical and spiritual.  We want them to be happy, to live in love, to be healthy, and to continually grow as children of God.  It is this last piece that makes the others easier.

I have faith that they are in God’s care, as is always in my prayers, and that this experience will be rich with opportunities to learn and find their way in the world.  There will be challenges, no doubt.  My hope is that through it all they will be able to look back and know that taking this bend in the river was one of the best decisions they will be happy to have made.

As for me, when it comes to change, I eventually lift my fears by looking forward to what the new will bring that is promising and exciting.  I wonder what may emerge through the unknown.  As an example, I am focusing now on traveling to them in March to immerse myself in their new location and to meet the new life that will be born into our family!   

My long distance relationships continually challenge and teach me to look at life and love more broadly than that which I’ve simply known.  The known is comfortable and relatively safe, which is why we all gravitate toward that which we know and why we often shy away from big change.  And yet, on the other side of change is a whole new way of life that we cannot begin to guess its brilliance and abundance without stepping into it… or in my case, of being swept along with the moving water and looking forward to the scenic route.