Fourteen

em

 

 

 

I just left my oldest daughter’s school wearing dark glasses to hide the tears streaming down my cheeks.  I’m sure anyone who saw me thought I was sad or something was wrong, but in fact the tears were those of joy and of pride and of gratefulness.  All I did was drop off lunch from Noodles for my birthday girl and in return received a big hug and an “I love you” from a newly turned fourteen year-old in the lobby of her middle school.  To top it off, as I was driving home I received a text from her thanking me again,  “Thank you so much for lunch mom, I love you.”  

How lucky am I?

I’m sure years to come will bring moments that aren’t so beautiful.   I’m sure at some point I’ll be paid back for the way I treated my own mom in my teenage years.  But today, for this moment, I will hold dear how important even the little things we do as moms are.  How even just a small thoughtful effort can go such a long way with our children and reap such rewards on us.    

It seems like yesterday to me that I was holding my first child, looking at her in absolute awe and feeling the greatest love a human being can ever feel.  It seems like a week ago that I watched her take her first steps, speak her first word, take her first bite of awful organic homemade carrot cake that I made her eat for her first birthday.  And perhaps only a month ago that I held her tightly before letting her enter elementary school for the first time.

I look back at fourteen years of photos and see my darling infant change into toddler, child, tween and now full teen.  I think about how in these fourteen years we have both learned, both grown.  I think I have learned to be a kinder mother.  I think I have learned to choose my battles. I think I have learned to let some things go; let her eat the delicious artificial cakes, let her go off on her own and not hold her hand so tightly, let her be HER.  And most importantly I have learned that there is nothing I would rather be than be a mom.

I think she has learned to walk taller and stronger.  I think she has learned to have confidence in who she is and not be concerned with what others think of her.   I think she has learned to make smart choices in friends, to be with those she truly loves being with and to do what she loves to do.  I have watched her grow into a young lady who can hang out with my friends just as easily as she hangs with her own and I have watched her realize and express how very lucky and blessed we are and be concerned about those who are not as fortunate.  I have watched her learn the strength and power of humor and also the power of tears and release.  And most of all, I have watched her become a young woman I am proud to know and even more proud to call my daughter.

And as my daughter is starting to borrow my shoes, I can only hope she walks in them better than I have.  That she learns from my mistakes and becomes a stronger and better woman than I am.  That she is blessed to become a mother someday and becomes a stronger and better one than I.  

All we can wish for as a mothers is that our children turn out better than us (as wonderful as we are!) and that we do our jobs right-raise them well then let them go.

But today, right now, I am holding on.  Holding onto her “ I love you.”  Holding on to her “thank you.”  Holding on to the fact that I brought my daughter a little joy today; because if I could give her even one-millionth of the joy she gives me then that is worth celebrating.

Happy 14th birthday my special Emily.  

2 thoughts on “Fourteen”

Leave a Comment