downhome_50304

Posted: 5/03/04

DOWN HOME:
We won't forget this Mom's Day

Sometimes, timing can be a real bummer.

Like Mother's Day this year. It's next Sunday, a couple of days after the spring semester ends at Hardin-Simmons University, where our oldest daughter, Lindsay, is wrapping up her sophomore year.

“That's terrific!” you might say. “School's getting out just in time for Lindsay to move home for the summer! Joanna should be thrilled! What a great Mother's Day present!”

You would be wrong, even if you used up a lifetime's supply of exclamation points.

Lindsay's not returning home this summer. She's staying in Abilene. She'll have a full-time job and live in an apartment. Just like a grown-up. We're loading her old bed, desk and dresser and hauling them out there next Saturday.

The day before Mother's Day.

To be fair, I can't really gripe. After my sophomore year at Hardin-Simmons, I got an internship at Texas Baptist Children's Home, and I never really lived at home with Mother and Daddy again.

And maybe that's the problem. I see what's ahead: Full-time jobs in other cities. Apartments and then houses. Different schedules; different lives. Our first “baby” never will call our home her home again.

Oh, this is why we shed all those tears in the first place, back when she went off to college.

Lately, images of young Lindsay have played in my mind like a splendid video of her life.

I remember her asleep in Jo's arms the evening after she was born. I see her taking her first steps.

I recall one evening when she was about 4. Jo was gone to church, and Lindsay and Molly were upstairs playing. I took the trash out to the street, but the girls realized I wasn't in the house before I got back. I'll never forget how they felt as they hugged my knees, crying, and how badly I felt for scaring them.

And there is 5-year-old Lindsay, sitting in a Mrs. Winner's restaurant on a Saturday morning, eating a cinnamon roll during a “date” with her daddy, before we went to the park

A moment ago, she was sitting in the backseat of our car as we drove her to the first day of first grade. Next, she was a ninth grader, performing with the Farmerettes drill team at halftime of her first football game.

OK, I know what's happening. One of the great parts of parenthood is being needed. Now that Lindsay stands stronger and stronger on her own, I wrap the memories of simpler, needier times around me like an old quilt.

One of the hardest parts of parenthood is turning loose. Trusting into God's hands this child who's been God's all along and realizing I'm not her fix-it Daddy anymore.

But one of the best parts of parenthood also is turning loose. Trusting into God's hands this young Christian woman, strong and independent. Just as we prayed she would be.