When She Leaves

The house was quiet, today, while both the boys were sleeping. I was sitting at the computer and Cambrie was busily playing on the couch. Suddenly, she looked up from her dolls and asked me, “Mommy, when you and Daddy were going to get married and going to live in your house together…when you first got married and were going to live in that house, was it sad?”

My thoughtful girl, treading softly, hoping to touch a bird.

Sitting on the front porch, writing in the observation journal that came with the binoculars she got for Christmas.

I was a little perplexed by her question, so I turned from the computer and scooted a little closer to her. “Was it…sad?”

“Yeah, like, before I was born, when you were getting married and going to live in your house, was it sad? Was it hard for you?”

“Well, actually I was really excited. I was really looking forward to living with my best friend. Why would it be sad?”

She started to explain, but instead her face quickly twisted into a frown. She hid it in her hands, trying not to cry. I moved quickly to the couch and pulled her onto my lap.

“C’mere babe. I’m sorry! What makes you think it would be sad?”

She started, “Cuz… when you were going…” ...but she wasn’t quite sure what words to say. She snuggled deeply in to me. I knew.

“You mean was I sad to leave my family?”

She nodded fervently. It about broke my heart. I tried to explain to her that when I was dating her Daddy, I’d already been living on my own for a few years. I wasn’t really leaving my family—I was looking forward to starting a new one with him.

But as I tried to explain, I thought of when she would be old enough to leave me and Patrick and to be on her own, away from where we would gather for dinner and say family prayers and love and play and chat daily with one another. And I almost didn’t want to try to make her feel better about it. Sometimes, even when life is exciting and wonderful more than it is sad, it is also really and truly sad.

Cambrie snuggled deeply into me as though afraid I’d up and leave her right there. She asked, “Mommy, when I grow up and get married, do you think that maybe I don’t have to go into my new house? Maybe I can just stay in your house, maybe just a little bit, maybe just a few months? Maybe me and my husband together can just live with you and Daddy a little bit? Can I do that Mommy?”

I tried to hush the part of me that was snickering at the thought of these future newlyweds asking to spend their first few months together under their parents’ roof. It wasn’t hard. Not with this sweet, beautiful, anxious little five-year-old on my lap.

“Cambrie, if, when you’re getting married, you want to live with us for a little bit, then we can definitely talk about it. And if you really want to, then I think that would be just fine.”

Daddy got her flowers for her end-of-kindergarten program.

What is this, really? We pour our souls into helping our children feel our love and God’s love for them as deeply and consistently as we can, that they have a place they belong and it is here, in our home and our arms, and in God’s arms and God’s grace. At the same time we strive to create a home for our children where they are encouraged and expected to learn and grow and become independent and ready for the exciting world that awaits them.

We try to show them home is a safe place of love and solidarity. Then we push them out into the wide and wild world.

I suppose I do know why—because we want to teach them how to find and create a loving, solid home of their own. But it is harder to grasp when I’m sitting here trying to understand it all through my young daughter’s anxious heart.

At any rate, this I do know: that by the time Cambrie is old enough to launch herself into the world, to discover and conquer and cure all she can see, then she will be full of all the excitement and determination that I felt barely ten years ago when I left home.

And I will be the one sitting at home, trying to understand why society (and natural human development, and good common sense) has to dictate that my little girl leave her Mommy’s side. And I will be the one struggling to hold back tears.