New Lenses For Some Old Eyes

About two years ago, our longtime optometrist not so delicately informed me that my eyes were getting old.  He said by 40, I'd need reading glasses.  I doubted him.  But he was right.  


I remember the moment I knew he was right.  I was sitting comfortably on the couch, legs curled up behind me, happily eating yogurt from a cute little single-serve cup.  I turned the cup so I could see the nutritional information, not that it mattered, and was shocked to see nothing but a jumbled mess of blurry chicken scratches.  I quickly discovered, however, by simply moving the cup a little bit further away, things came quickly into focus.  


I knew at some point, the length of my arms wouldn't be enough to remedy the issue.  Given that, I broke down, admitted my vision wasn't what it ought to be and got a a pair of reading glasses.  Unfortunately, it hasn't just been my eyesight that's been a little out of focus lately.  


It's funny how a mom has trouble seeing her kids as anything other than...well, kids.  Even though we know they're getting bigger...bigger than us even...we still see them as 'little'.  We want to protect them and provide for them, to lead them and guide them.  We want to encourage them and inspire them, teach them and shape them.  We invest ourselves in them so fully that the line between them and us often gets very blurry indeed.


But our kids come to a place in their own journey where they need the lines to blur just a little less.  They start to make their own lives.  They make their own friends.  Want privacy.  Think they know it all.  They  
have opinions we don't always share.  Ideas we don't always understand.  Dreams we don't always embrace.  They feel their own feelings and think their own thoughts.  They have attractions that astound us and preferences that confound us.


And then the moment comes when, like with the writing on my yogurt cup, you just can't quite make them out anymore.  So you let them move away a little bit...an overnighter...a boy girl party...a driver's license...prom...college...and boom...your arm can't reach any longer.  You stretch as far as you can, but then you just have to let them go.  As your fingertips slip off the edge of their childhood, they become...their own.


At first, it's almost devastating.  All you see is an empty house filled with painful quietness.  You see that you're losing what you had...you're losing who you've been.  But then, you begin to see things differently, if you're willing to look through a fresh set of eyes.  


You see that all the years of bedtime prayers, loving care and a strong guiding hand have led to a beautiful place.  It's a place where little boys become great men and little girls become incredible women.  With a change of a prospective, you suddenly begin to see your children as the grown up...competent, capable, productive, insightful, wholly wonderful human beings they were destined to be all along.  You see that who they are is exactly who they ought to be.


And the beauty of it is, just about the time they have children of their own, they'll begin to see us with different eyes.  They'll understand why, even when we're truly happy for our kids, even when we're genuinely excited for them to spread their wings and fly...we still cry as we watch them grow and our heart still aches as we watch them go.