The gladness
of Kayleen’s wedding arriving: it springs up everywhere – this is the week!
The sadness of
Kayleen leaving: I never know exactly when or how it will hit me.
It might
tighten in my chest when I walk down the hall and look in at her door and see the
empty book shelves in her room or give a quick little stab as I write us3
on a weekend meal chart after writing us4 on all the days up to Sunday.
During sharing
time at Oasis, the ache may spill over and run down my face in little streams
as she speaks, all choked up herself, trying to express to her church family
what they mean to her and how much she’ll miss them.
And when I go
out the door of The Carleen House in Guys Mills, Pennsylvania and walk through
crunchy leaves in the tangy autumn air to get in the van so we can head back
home, I think about the rooms we have just painted and cleaned and about the dishes
and books we have just shelved and about the sheets and beautiful hand-stitched
quilt we have arranged on the just-assembled bed. Then it hits me again: she’s
leaving us, and next time I come here, it will be to visit my daughter all
newly turned Mrs. Atkinson.
It seems like
I’m giving her up. Or am I merely losing in order to gain? In a sense, I have
been sharing her with others most of her life. It’s what a mother does, pretty
much, from the time her child is born. Let go, release, offer to others. Is
this sharing solely giving, or is it also receiving?
I shared Kayleen
with relatives - her beaming grandparents, the doting aunts, the near-her-age cousins.
Especially the girl cousins. They’d go off to each other’s houses to play,
imagine, and giggle. Or whisper secrets far into the night at sleepovers. I’d
let her go maybe even when there were beans to pick or the Saturday dusting to
do for Sunday company coming. These same cousins, though, turned into young
ladies who easily dropped in at our place on a whim and ended up sitting around
my kitchen island eating my food and including me in their fun and wise
conversations. For awhile, one even called me Second Mom.
I let Kayleen begin
attending Sunday School when she was between her third and fourth birthdays. It
seemed like she slid off my lap right into the flock of children traipsing
downstairs to their classrooms, with hardly a backward glance. (She has her two
older brothers to thank for bragging up “being old enough to go to Sunday
School”) She held her teachers in high regard, forming friendships with them
that continue to this day. She had their good example to follow when she began
teaching Sunday School classes herself as an older teen. They say it takes a
village to raise a child, and I’m grateful to have experienced the Sunday
School part of our church village.
I taught
Kayleen kindergarten at home, but when she was almost six, I said bye to her that
very first morning of Grade One at our church school. I said Have a good day!
every morning after that when I dropped her off at CCS or when she went out the
door to catch her school ride. I no longer had an eye on all her daytime
activities. She sat under the sound of someone else’s teaching. The number of
people influencing her began to expand, to include even her young peers.
Her character development
also became the concern of her instructors. Once, when Kayleen was in the older
grades, one of her teachers spoke to me about an area of my daughter’s interpersonal
relationships needing improvement. I felt called on to sit down with my daughter
and exhort her in love. A thing which I dreaded doing actually got Kayleen and
me talking, and looking back, I would say cemented a pillar in our mother-daughter
bond.
I’ve also
noticed how Kayleen has benefited from a variety of school teachers who have
shared their expertise with her over the years, far surpassing what I alone could
have taught her. I see her love and knowledge of music, her appreciation of
literature, her Math skills, the sewing tips she learned in Home Ec, and I’m
grateful.
After
graduation from high school, Kayleen started leaving us for longer periods of
time. As parents, we started travelling more, and telling her bye more. We drove
her to Bible School where we dropped her off to experience a term and a choir
tour that meant she was gone from us for seven whole weeks. During that time, she
expanded her Bible knowledge. She developed a greater appreciation for choral
music. And she gained skills in forming new friendships. We went to hear her
choir program and enjoyed meeting her new friends - and making connections with
people we had been to Bible School with ourselves.
Then we
released her to a TWO-YEAR term of study at a small private college four hours
away from home (Does attending Faith Builders build the faith of the students
or their parents?) in another state, another country actually. She studied hard
and learned how to teach and brought back much – a deeper appreciation for her
parents, her heritage, her church.
She also made
close friends and introduced us to them – lovely young women that became my
friends, too, dear enough to me that I welcome them with momhugs when they walk
in my door. One Kansas lass came and stayed with us for a week
during Music Camp and got to feeling so at home with us that she claimed my vintage
Hayward mug as hers to use whenever she comes.
The young men
at FB became good friends to Kayleen during the two years, too. We met a few of
them when they came to our community one weekend to play in a volleyball
tournament on the same team as Kayleen. Eventually, one of those guys asked Ken
& me for permission to date Kayleen. We gave the permission and now we are
soon to receive a son-in-law.
In between,
there’s been a whole lot of letting go - and receiving in return. I let my
daughter go on her dates with Carlin, sometimes for whole weekends at a time.
But the two of them gave as well, joining us for family devotions and “hash
times”, serving us grilled pizza, arranging for birthday surprises that involved
Kayleen’s suggestions and Carlin’s designing skills.
I watched her go
off with Carlin to visit church people over supper, and I watched their
friendship grow with families who were already dear to us. This makes me happy.
Kayleen went off with Carlin to meet with the pastors and their wives for
premarital counselling. The conversations they had there were initiators of dialogue
between Kayleen and me, on marriage topics we may not have entered into as
easily, were we to snatch and settle them down in front of us on our own.
I let her
commit to live with Carlin wherever he moves and lives and has his being, which
is, at least for the first years of their marriage, in Pennsylvania in the
village of Guys Mills in a sweet little house a short walk from his work at
Faith Builders. Last weekend, I helped Kayleen pack our van full of bridal
shower gifts and the first load of her belongings and I helped her move it away
from here and across the miles to settle in another place for another era of
her life – without me.
The first day there,
I got to join my daughters and daughters-in-law in the fun and excitement of
preparing The Carleen House for its future occupants, and the next day I got to
join Carlin’s family in a continuation of the theme. At the end of both days,
when the hard work of painting and cleaning was done, we sat around and
relaxed, gabbing, snacking, and laughing with each other in a very homey and
comfortable way.
I shared my
daughter and ever since, I’ve been accumulating lovely people and rich
experiences.
All this
doesn’t mean that I won’t ache when I see her go. In fact, these days the giving,
not the receiving, seems to be the longer end of the sharing stick.
Come Saturday,
if you see me over in my corner at the reception dabbing away quiet tears,
maybe it will be that I’m overwhelmed at the sight of all the wonderful
gathered people whose lives Kayleen has touched in some way.
And maybe not…
This Post's Quote:
"I let
you go and you brought me back a whole new world." – Danette Martin
This Post's Childhood Memory:
Impressions of
weddings that I attended as a child (back when whole families were invited):
*Being a gift
receiver along with my twin at our aunt’s wedding, feeling all grown-up in our
cream-colored dresses with the big wide belts (we even had cream fabric belt
loops on those dresses!)
*Eating pink,
green and white pillow mints and peanuts out of tiny pleated paper party cups
*Eating ice
cream that came in individual Styrofoam cups with cardboard lids or in a block
encased by paper. In the latter scenario, you’d need to strip the paper off a rectangular block of ice cream that was half melted by the time you received it while going
through the buffet line and got back to your metal folding chair seat and could get
the thing opened on your plate.
*Watching the bridal
couple stand behind the loaded gift table, opening the wrapped packages one at
a time, holding up each item and publicly thanking the giver who was likely –
or unlikely - to be listening right at that moment in the audience.
*The songs.
Mostly from the Christian hymnal. For many years I thought of Tread Softly as
strictly a wedding song. I loved the hushed tones in which we sang it, and felt
that the Master really was here, and we were sharing a foretaste of Eden in
that moment.
