JUST ANOTHER DAY

I just found this.  It was written, I think, in 1995.............

    The familiar sound of the front door slamming shut jarred me awake today. Had just fallen asleep after working a night shift at the state hospital.

    "Bye, Dad," said the young man who was hurrying to his car, late as usual, for school.  Just another day.

    But, for me, it was unlike any other day, because it was the last day he would attend high school.

    I got out of bed and watched numbly through the curtains as he drove off, not looking back, because it was, after all, just another day.

    Tears stung my eyes and my throat ached as I returned to the comfort of my bed.  Pulling the covers up over my head, I shed quiet bitter-sweet tears for a few minutes, not trying to stop them.

    Where have all the years gone? I could still so clearly see him as a wiry, very active 5-year-old, trying to look nonchalant as he made the short walk from the back door to the big, noisy, yellow school bus, arriving in our farmyard to pick him up for school..........it was his first day of school.  We lived 11 miles from town, 3 miles on a dirt road, in Nebraska.  It was August, 1982.

    In those days I was the center of his world -- a position which I took completely for granted.  He told me everything then.  I was the one he confided in.  I was the one he laughed the most with, cried the most with, talked-to incessantly, filling my days and my heart with treasures that would increase in their value with the passing of time.

    The scared-to-death-but-not-about-to-show-it little guy looked so vulnerable. So little.  I knew, without a doubt that he was the handsomest, smartest, funniest, most loving boy who ever set-off, for the very first time, to school.  He was so proud of his new clothes -- a red and blue baseball cap advertising one of the local granaries, a striped polo shirt, a blue windbreaker, brand-new, still-stiff jeans, and the coolest brown hiking boots ever!  Wow!!  All new (such a rarity), purchased 60 miles away at the nearest town which featured a large discount store.  I was excited at the check-out, telling the salesgirl that my little boy would be wearing them to start kindergarten in a few days.  She was sweet and patient with me.

    I loved him so much I thought my heart would break, as I watched him climb on that bus for the first time.  He didn't look back that day, either.

    I guess the not looking back is a thing of youth, because, after all, it's so much more fun and interesting to look forward when you're young.  As we grow older  and continue making deposits in our memory bank of treasures, (sprinkled always with varying portions of sorrows, as well), we find ourselves looking back more and more often.

    As I sit at this typewriter, writing something for the first time in many years. I find a warmth spreading through me.  The warmth of a mother's love, a mother's pride, the warmth of accomplishment.  He has finished high school!  ALREADY!!  This really terrific, still-handsome, still-smart, still-funny, still most-loving BOY is graduating from high school.  Incredible....

    There are some things that get better as we grow older.  We appreciate the moment so much more than we did as younger mothers.  We recognize the importance of simple days.  We can look back and remember, down to the tiniest detail, how utterly precious and dear certain days were, special moments spent molding our children (whether we knew it at the time, or not) into who they are today.

    My son's "gonna be a preacher," he says.  [like his dad] Probably a youth minister first, then go into a preaching ministry.  He's going away to a fine Bible college soon -- it's very far away, and I shall miss him terribly.  But I'm so thankful that God allowed him to be in our midst these 18 years, which, today, seem but a moment.

    This is as it should be.  It's God's design.  And I want for him to get on with his life, which will, I realize with some pain, include me less and less as he matures.  It's a sweet melancholy that grips me when I realize how enormous my love is for him, and that it is NEARLY  balanced with a kind of ambivalent happiness at watching him fly away.

    On a wall somewhere in my mother's home is a scarred, rugged piece of wood with an inscription.  I feel the impact of the words it bears, as I have never felt them before.  My mother knew!  I don't know who the author is, but the old, wise saying is this: "There are just two things we can give our children: one is roots, the other is wings."