She is four years and 364 days old and she is spinning away from me like a leaf on the breeze.
— Life Out Loud, May 2004
It should come as no surprise since she convinced our entire family and a wide circle of friends that a ham sandwich was, in fact, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, that our baby grew up to be a lawyer. That is to say that GirlWonder, aka “Doodle, Esquire” is slated to soon become, God willing, a lawyer.
GirlWonder has just applied to graduate from law school. She has a puffy velvet eight-sided tam and a voluminous robe with sash. She video-called me to collapse in giggles. How does one ever wear this thing?
Hint: it is NOT with the long puffy sash in the FRONT. We know that now. Although I still say that would have been a great place to stash some snacks.
My daughter — she of the emerald green eyes, baby-fine blonde hair and exactly six little freckles across the bridge of her nose — has her new sparkly white shoes, clean socks neatly rolled at the ankles, two bright red hair ribbons and her lunch money carefully tucked into her pocket.
She still has the emerald green eyes. She has traded ankle socks for classic heels, carries her lunch money on her debit card and, most notably, added a sparkling gold wedding band to her daily attire. She will soon complete her 20th year of school, but hey, who’s counting?
A lot can change in 20 years.
It’s crazy to me that it has been two decades since I wrote “she is spinning away from me like a leaf on the breeze.” That was the day we went to her kindergarten registration. As cliche as it sounds, I really do remember it like it was yesterday.
She was so, SO eager to go. I was not ready. She was my best pal, my partner in shopping and coffee shop “dates.” I missed her fiercely when she was at preschool for a few hours each week. Now the school wanted her for six hours a day EVERY day? Who was I going to hang out with? What if I didn’t WANT to make friends my own age?
Fortunately, we never did outgrow being partners in shopping and coffee dates. As a married adult, she still comes home to visit often, calls regularly and invites me to spend time with her.
Our children are the two greatest gifts of my life, and I do not take lightly — or for granted — their continued love, care and as they have grown, their FRIENDSHIP. Still, both she and her brother have moved on up and out on their own.
There are moments that it seems patently unfair that we help create these amazing humans, and then we don’t get to keep them home with us to enjoy. But then again, would we want to? It has never been our life goal to have our children live with us forever.
Healthy birds fly, after all.
When she was very young, I once told her of the famous quote that says “to have a child is to forever know what it is to have your heart walking around outside your body.” She looked up at me, with a gap-toothed smile, and said, “I am your heart on an adventure!”
Never have truer words been spoken.
Watching our children grow has been the greatest delight of our lives. They have brought us laughter, life experiences and new people to love. I’m a huge fan of adult children.
I usually think my writing stands the test of time. In this case, however, it turns out that what I wrote two decades ago was, in fact, wrong. As we move into the next phase, this child of our heart has grown into a remarkable adult. She is not so much spinning “away” as she is taking us along with her on yet another great adventure.
