Out of the Child Business

I am no longer the parent of children. The Baby graduated from High School this afternoon. Weird. I've known that this was coming, of course, for eighteen years. I had a warmup, when The Elder graduated three years ago. But first is different, and The Elder (much like the dad she so closely resembles had done for his parents a generation earlier) did a remarkable job of preparing her parents to be ready to let her go. The Baby is different. I guess that she is more of a symbol, and of a lot of things.
Clearly, any last delusions of youth that I have harbored are shot. My girls are both adults. When it was just one, well, I still have The Baby. Now she is heading to college, and I'm not a young guy anymore and there's a lot more proof than just this gray hair. I am really glad that the big, strong, young boyfriend will be there when we move her into the dorm in August. I just wish he'd go away after that.
This transition changes one of most complicated relationships of my life. I will be much less involved with the girls' mother now. In the 14 or 15 years since our divorce we found a way to parent together pretty well. It took a while, but we finally became much more tolerant of each other than we were when we lived under the same roof. We have been through all of the normal ups and downs of children, and a few extras, but for the most part we've tried to stay on the same page and put the kids first. Until the wedding plannings hit (and that will be temporary), we won't need to be in the same close consultation that at-home teenagers have required. For good and bad, up and down, married and divorced, and always parenting, we have been in virtually daily contact for a quarter century. It's time to move on. Good luck, and God bless.
All this also means redefining the relationship with The Baby. Always my little girl just like her sister, they are both, now, adult young women. Foxworthy had a great bit about how easy it is to be SuperDad to little kids. Father and child were riding in the car when the little one spotted something out the window and pointed with a confused look on his face. "See that, Billy? That's a cow!" pronounced SuperDad. It's fun while you know everything, can answer every question, can fix any hurt. But now the relationships get real and far, far, far more even. Now it's comforting when they still ask, even though they long ago realized that I never did know everything. And for a while, didn't know anything.
But I think, just maybe, that this is going to be even more fun than all that's gone before. And before has been pretty wonderful. My experience of relationship with my parents grew immediately richer and more rewarding when I grew up and started carrying my end of things from time to time. I pray that I can have with my adult kids what I've enjoyed with Mom and Dad. I love both of my adult daughters dearly, and do not care to even imagine a moment when they wouldn't be my first thoughts in the morning, and last in the evening, along with this girlfriend of mine.
I just ask a little time and patience now and then for a frequently misty-eyed, sentimental old fool to get to treasure the memories of their births, first steps and words, toothy and toothless childhood smiles, hugs, paintings, kisses, bicycle experiments, plays, dances, band concerts, choir concerts, field trips, and school years begun and ended, including this last one in High School. And a million other things that live in my heart.
I'm even going to let them think that I see them as adults whenever I look at them. But I don't. And I won't. I don't have to tell them, but in my eyes, my mind and my heart, they will always be those two little angels, fallen asleep leaning against each other in the recliner, one with a pacifier, the other a thumb, smiling from sweet dreams, waiting for daddy to carry them to bed. That's what I see when I look at them. And if God has any grace left, that's what I'll always see.