I put her on a plane

We put her on a plane. She's waited and worked for it for a year. She'd studied, walked dogs, sat cats, scooped poop, fed turtles, sold Poinsettias, chocolate and Tupperware. Like so many before her she left one girl and came home another. "We can't let her go away again! She comes back a different person" her father says, a twinge of pain from the stretch of the cord he unknowingly holds on to.

Now, she knows she can do it. She feels her power. She has yet again, as she had demonstrated since birth, proven herself independent. She insisted on checking herself in. Facing the airline employee at the counter so much easier than her classmates with an assignment of oratory. I could sense her tension just below the surface like thin ice and the rush of the river below. But as so many challenges she has faced she negotiated the route successfully.

Obviously it was time for my chick to take her maiden flight. She flourished and experimented and tired and returned.......anew. How scared I am. How proud I am. How impressed I am. How reassured, I am.

We put her on plane and it was us who were left behind. Like the countless parents that push or grieve or perhaps feel both as our children grow right before our eyes marking the passing of our time in history and hers in the future. How do I feel happy for her, when it explicates the end for me? I will do it as my daughter shows me, negotiating the emotional thin ice with the rushing water just below. Knowing it is the way of the world. The way it should be.

I am so proud of her. My heart bursts with love for her.