Five Minute Friday: Good-bye

The Gypsy Mama gives us a topic and we write for five minutes, unfiltered, no editing, no going back.


Good-bye.

I've been thinking lately about the slow way we say good-bye to our children every day.  As they grow up, needing us in different ways, they start to leave us behind.  And because it is so gradual we never actually stop to say "good-bye."

In fact I'm so busy doing the million other things that need doing, that sometimes I don't even notice until weeks later that something has changed. 

My daughter used to pull a chair over to the sink and stick her little hands in the water everytime I washed the dishes.  It drove me nuts, but part of me loved that she wanted to be right next to me.  She hasn't done this in weeks.

When we moved my three-year old started coming into our room in the middle of the night to snuggle for a few minutes before heading back to his own bed to sleep.  I loved his warm little body curled up next to me.  He's only done it once in the last month, and he climbed into bed on my husband's side. 

My kindergartener...here's where I really see the good-byes coming my way.  I like the quiet of only having two while he's at school, but it's only a couple days a week.  Next year he'll be gone all day, every day.  I will miss him.  So much.  We will have so many fewer opportunities to talk, to play, to hang out. 

I don't like good-byes.  And I'm not good at them.  So maybe it's for the best that so many of these childhood connections pass quietly.  Because as much as I mourn the loss of their baby and toddler days, I know I have so much more to look forward to.