Just the other day I heard it from another parent, “My kids are growing up. They’ll be leaving for college or work before you know it. I dread losing them.”
Believe me, Alice and I felt the same way each time one of our children ventured into the world to make her own way. It’s tough. However, we also have a child who is 38 who will never grow up and move away. She was brain damaged at birth. Angel operates at about a 7 year old level. She’s a little girl in a woman’s body. We love her and enjoy her being here with us for life. Yet, whenever I feel sad because my other daughters have grown and flown, I think about Angel and all in life that she will miss. Oh, we give her as full a life as possible, and she is a happy person. But she will never have a child, write a book, cook a meal for the people next door, hand out coffee downtown to the homeless, do mission work, or be her mother’s best friend.
As one father told me years ago, “Our job is to help them grow, learn, and mature so that they can leave and make their own way in the world. Have their own lives. Be used by God in the ways He chooses to use them uniquely. Rather than thinking about what you are losing — actually all you lose is their living under the same roof; they’ll always be your child — and what the Kingdom of God and the world gains because you have reared them to succeed in life.”
He’s right. Alice and I still drop into the dumps from time to time as we miss our babies being our babies, but we know that Joanna and Kimberly are making their marks on the world, serving God, and touching lives.
We’re proud of them. And no matter what they do or where they live, they will always be our babies, living in our hearts as a 2 year old, 8 year old, 15 year old, and all those other wonderful memories.
Besides, when we get old we’re moving in with them.