The Kindergarten Metaphor

I sent my baby boy off to kindergarten today. Never before had I truly understood the significance of this day for parents. The tears I shed today are about far more than the fact that I will no longer have him home with me during the day; rather it marks the first in many moments when I will stand as a loving and proud bystander on the sidelines of his life.

Those precious sweet days intertwined with my preschooler at the zoo or the park or watching him at home discover his world have now receded into the backdrop of my motherhood memories. A new day is dawning before me. I now move into a phase that requires more trust.

It is on this day that I release him to the fact that he is on his own great journey, his own adventure. He is a being unto himself, gifted and entrusted to me, yes, but to fulfill a specific role that includes an ever process of relinquishing to the fact that Life itself is carrying him on his way. It requires believing that he is in the hands of the same benevolent Source that I know guides my life.

This parenting task is a lovely metaphor for our relationship to life itself. Living fully requires a gradual process of letting go, releasing the moment to unfold, releasing our false grasp and trusting.

This has me celebrating the glorious impermanence of life. While the constant movement and flow of life brings it’s losses, it’s deaths, it’s separations; it also brings the promise of a new treasure unfolding. Each and every moment opens us up to newness, wonder, and tasting the surprise that life always delivers.

There is much joy to be claimed by jumping in to the ever flowing river of Life and simply allowing. It’s waters are here to carry us. Trust in that. All is well.