He's Leaving the Nest and I'm a Mess

Honestly, I secretly thought that I wouldn't be able to have kids. It was a dream I dared not truly hope for; it was easier to assume it just wouldn't happen. When I got pregnant with our second child, we both knew we were having a boy. We just knew. We didn't know he would require an emergency c-section, cord around his neck. We waited, breaths held, for his first scream of life, for the doctor to say, "It's a boy!"

We all do that, don't we? Count fingers and toes, watch their chests rise and fall at night to make sure they're breathing. We hope and pray for the best and often fear the worst. Brady has been an adventure from the beginning. Stitches twice before he was four, jumping ramps on rollerblades at eight, back flips and front flips off furniture. Eating bugs and worms outside to show he could live off the land when he was seven. Even now, he sits on our roof to draw and hikes a hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail each summer with his dad.

When I say my son is talented, I say it with a sense of awe. I look at his art bewildered by his ability to create, the images and ideas pulled from his mind and poured out on paper or canvas are amazing. He is a true artist at barely 18 years old.

Early this year, Brady let us know that instead of studying art in college, he was moving to Colorado with a friend to start a business using his talent as an artist. I shouldn't have been surprised- it's a very Brady thing to do, but it's like my heart and mind didn't know what to do with what he was telling me.

During his growing-up years I just never thought about this day. I assumed my children would go to a college within driving distance. I imagined fall breaks and Christmas breaks, Brady walking through the door with laundry. I imagined moving him into his dorm room and "Parents Weekend".

This week is going to be hard. I have decided that I'm just going to get all of his baby pictures out, play all of the tearjerking songs, like "Slow Down" by Nicole Nordeman and cry until I can't cry anymore. Why try and hold it together? Why fight it? I need to feel it, process it, and cry like a mama.

I'm at this place, the edge of a goodbye I didn't quite anticipate, and realize there was no way to prepare my heart. I am crying shamelessly as I type this in Panera, my heart already a mess from losing my Dad last month. This crying, this letting go has to happen. Stepping into the next season is healthy. Just hard.

We raise our children with high hopes that they will one day learn to walk, potty-train, sleep all night, read, make friends, drive a car, do their laundry, score a touchdown, win a race, go to prom, graduate, interview for a job, go to college, pursue their calling, get married, have children...But when we reach these milestones, when our role as parent ends, and our role as adviser begins, our hearts break.

We've been mamas- birthing, feeding, nurturing, guiding, and protecting for so long; and our hearts have found comfort in having our chicks all gathered in the nest, safe and sound. Then as they perch on the edge of the nest, eager to fly, we grieve.

Don't get me wrong. I am so proud of him and 100% supportive of his plans. And I'll also add this little nugget of truth- the boy needs to move out of my house. Soon. But Colorado might as well be China. He's a poor artist, and we are raising four other teenagers. Plane tickets are not really in our budget.

I'll miss his crazy, creative self. The one that somehow taped the word "gullible" to our ceiling, and left a chair on the roof after drawing there several days. I will miss hugs from that tall, skinny guy who can get away with so much with just a wink and a smile.

I want to speak some words to you mamas who, like me, have a picture in your mind of your child's future. We all want what's best for them, but what if they choose a path that's not what we would have chosen? What if what we think is best for them isn't really for them at all?

We have poured our lives into them. They know. They know what we believe, our opinions, and our hopes. They just need to discover their own and then they need to walk it out. It might get messy. They may fail or have regrets.

You never know, they might one day come back and say, "You were right, Mom." But is that our heart’s desire? To be right? I just want Brady to know that I love him and believe in him. As a young man, he needs to know that I think he has what it takes.

I remind myself each day that Jesus loves Brady perfectly and has plans that even I don't know about. God reminds me that Brady has the same Holy Spirit living in him as I do in me. So I will let him go in three days, praying that he lives his days acknowledging God and seeking His wisdom. I will keep praying that what God started in him, he will finish, that the Word Brady hid in his heart will not return void.

He's an amazing young man. God has gifted him and shaped him and has plans for Brady, plans to give him hope and a future. I can trust that. Will I go upstairs next week, when the other kids are at school, and lay on his bed and cry? Yes.

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6