Letting Her Go

I’ll do anything to not write about her leaving.

So far this morning, I’ve answered seven emails, done two loads of laundry, and spent a ridiculous $7 for at coffee at Starbucks. I went to Target and picked up items that I really didn’t need, cleaned out the refrigerator, and ate a bowl of leftover rigatoni for breakfast.

Yup—I’m thoroughly entrenched in avoidance mode.

A child leaving home and heading off to college is nothing new—I have four children, so I’ve done it several times already. In three weeks my eighteen year-old daughter will be 130 miles, or two and a half hours away from me—just far enough for her to gain some independence, yet close enough for her to get on a train and come home for the weekend should she be inclined. It’s not a big deal, right?

Except that it is.

It’s a big deal because who I am is so inextricably tied to being Isa’s mom. God knows I was more than a ripened peach when I birthed her at the age of forty-two. Geriatric pregnancy, anyone? With three teenagers already under my belt, I was thrown back into new-mom mode a whopping ten years after I thought I was done. Getting up in the middle of the night to feed and change a baby in your late twenties is hard enough, but doing it in your forties while raising a family, running a household, and teaching 35 piano students was too much. I was exhausted, over-extended, and resentful.

Then the unimaginable happened. The normally energetic toddler could barely walk up the stairs; her gums began to bleed, and there were bruises on her legs that wouldn’t go away.

Leukemia.

For two weeks, I slept in the hospital during her initial treatment. When her temperature was taken or her blood was drawn; the fear encased me in stone. I spent hours studying the nurses’ faces for any signs of alarm. If her labs were good, I felt like I could soar into the heavens—if they were bad, I was devastated. For two and a half years, I took Isa to all of her clinic appointments, her pale, bald head poking out from her favorite fleece blanket as we navigated the maze of hospital corridors. I crushed up her nightly chemo meds into a powder and mixed them with cherry syrup so she wouldn’t fuss. My hands continually stroked her back as I felt for the fever that would put us back into a hospital room.

When Isa was considered cured, I happily discovered that my exhaustion had evaporated and my resentment had faded. Somehow, I’d tapped into my inner strength while caring for my daughter. Then I used that strength to find my own voice.

Isa’s birth, illness, and ultimately, her survival—changed our family in ways that we still don’t fully comprehend. All we know is that we adore her beyond measure, and we will miss her profoundly.

My gift to her will be the most precious, but also the most painful.

I will let her go.