Something Shared

A Devotion for the church I attend, First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor.

I’m currently enrolled in a course titled, “Her Life Is Not Yours: Get Out Of Your Daughter’s Way.” I’ve been a student in the class since October 23, 2006 when all 9 pounds, 10 ounces of Hadley Grace was put in my arms and if she could’ve spoken, she would’ve said, “I’m here now. What’s next?”

The beauty of the course is that I can fail all the assignments, and I’m still a student. The agony is the assignments keep getting harder.

Frankly, I’m a terrible student. I ignore the lessons learned and I hate the class, but there’s no dropping out. If I believe Hadley’s been wonderfully and fearfully knitted together by God – and I do – then my womb was just a starting point for a great new image; it is not big enough to house all that Hadley will become. I must let her go.

It’s just that I have so many questions: Have I given her enough? Told her enough? What happens when she fails? When her heart breaks? When she breaks a heart? What’ll I do?

On a ride to Mackinaw Island in early May, Mel Rogers and I discussed motherhood and probably I went on a rant about the iphone7 because if given only a smidgeon of time, I can blame all my parenting woes on the iphone7.

“I just don’t know what to do,” I told her. What I meant was, “I just don’t know what to do about Hadley growing up.”

Mel quoted William Sloan Coffin: “God gives us minimum protection and maximum support,” and suggested that is how we should raise our kids.

I didn’t like that one bit.

But we go to church, my family and I, and it’s Memorial Day weekend, and Mel’s preaching. Her sermon is for the congregation of course, but a couple of minutes in and I know it’s also for her son, Charlie, who is off to college soon.

“We have to leave home to find home,” she tells us, her son, and perhaps herself. I wrap my arms around my stomach, protecting the memories that seem to begin in its pit, and I know want to be released: Hadley’s first day of Kindergarten, her first step onto the soccer field, her first comic strip, her first plunk on the piano keys hit correctly to form a melody, her first bus ride, her first school play. I squeeze tighter to try to keep what doesn’t belong to me in.

Mel doesn’t seem afraid when she imagines her son at college: in his dorm, making friends, doing laundry, completing term papers, and I imagine more firsts: first kiss (Dear God, has it happened yet? I don’t even know!), first high school dance, first drive on her own, first all-nighter. I steal a glance at Hadley, who is sketching on the pad of paper stored in the pews. She’s drawn a soccer ball, some music notes, an eye with a person in the pupil’s reflection. I loosen the grip I have on myself. I can’t protect Hadley from any of those firsts.

What’s more, I don’t want to.

The last hymn we sing is “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” by James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson. The melody is bold and strong; the rhythm steady. It makes me want to march.  I wonder if Hadley likes the hymn too, because she seems to swell with the music – she squares her shoulders, she lifts her chin, she raises the hymnal so she can still follow the notes and the words but her voice joins with the rest of us – ringing with harmony – unprotected, but fully supported by all the voices surrounding her.