Grief and Gratitude: First Day of High School

lrico07
Aug 15, 2023
3 min read

You can’t schedule your emotions. I did not expect to cry today. And if so, I’d expect it to be a tear or two, for just a moment. But an hour in, I find I need to write myself through this. I finished a very uplifting conversation with a co-worker about our children and then I began to reflect on my morning. Jeweliana started High School today. While driving her to school, all I could think about was the time I drove her to her first day of kindergarten. She was in the back seat, poised, ready and defiantly brave. She would not allow herself to be nervous, anxious, or afraid. Maybe she was, but she wasn’t going to let me see it. She was quiet. I asked, “What are you thinking?” To which she replied, “thoughts”. I managed to evoke conversation from her and gathered, she was excited but didn’t want to be late to her first day of high school. We prayed about that, about the day, the year, and her entire high school experience. Danny and I get to watch her grow and blossom in ways we did and in ways we did not get to experience. She’s confident and excited about school, her activities, and her friends – that is a blessing. Yet, in these moments, I feel brand new. I don’t have a reference or prior experience except my own start to high school and of course to think of my mom. I wonder, “did my mom get emotional and cry?” Nah, she was too strong to let a first day of school set her back to an emotional speed bump. And if she did, she wasn’t going to let me see it. Besides, she had too much to do and too many of us to cry over. I miss my mom so much. I feel untethered without her presence in our lives. I imagine we are rock climbers. My mom is ahead of me up the mountain and I’m behind tethered to her waist. Jewels is tethered to me further down the mountain. I, like my mom and her mom before her, are trying our best to blaze a path so that our daughters [and children] can experience the best of what we have, and more. We do our imperfect best. One day, the rope that tethered me to my mom loosened and fell away. My mom was no longer up the mountain ahead of me, she had reached her summit. That feeling is inexplicable. What to do but carry on as she had when she became untethered from her mom. So, I keep climbing and doing my best to guide my daughter. I constantly check and tighten my ropes. I desperately want her to stay focused and to forge ahead behind me. But she, in her teenage exuberance loosens the ropes. She wants to swing from side to side as she ascends. In the fullness of her youth she is discovering her own individuality. I remind myself, not to forget that I did the same. While her adventuresome nature is normal and a good thing, as a mom it makes me nervous. I look back and down the mountain, and I am immobilized between the joy of watching her experience the joy of her youth and the fear of not being able to hold on to her. I know I’m not strong enough to prevent her from falling. I can’t control or fully protect her. I don’t know what else to do but to trust in whom I believe. I pray to the one who loves her more than me – knows her better than me – and can protect her physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. What to do but forge ahead and carry on as my mom and her mom? At the moment, that literally meant, I wiped my tears, gathered myself, got up to re-open my office door, and give thanks for the blessing of having a mom, a daughter and all the experiences that comes with that privilege, including these moments of grief and gratitude.

I lift up my eyes to the hills-- where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. – Psalm 121:1a NIV