Mitten Strings for God: Conclusion
I really wanted to copy the whole last chapter onto my blog. It made me cry. Thinking about the next phase of life, without small children......well, I'm just not ready for that yet. Sure makes living in the moment seem like the right thing to do.
Thank you Katrina Kenison for sharing your world with us in your book, Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry. It was inspirational.
"In the life of children, a year and a half is a very long time indeed. To me, though, it seems it was just yesterday that I sat down to compose the letter that eventually grew into this book. Yet our family life is already so very different from what it was then; even in this short space of time the details have changed, and, almost imperceptibly, we have changed with them. Only now, as I pause to look back over these pages, and over the life chapters that they represent, do I suddenly realize how much that I cherished has slipped away even as I tried to give it voice, only to be replaced by new ways of doing and of being.
My boys no longer share a tub, not ever. Now Henry showers alone, and Jack washes his own hair. And so the door has swung shut on the fantasy world they created in the bathtub, and on the long hours they splashed and played there together, emerging at last with pruney fingers and toes, to be wrapped in towels and bundled off to warm beds. Our morning cuddles are rare now, too.
[...]
And so my role is changing, too; I am called to be less of a playmate now and more simply a witness to my children's own breathtaking process of growth and inner awakening. It is with some pang of sadness that I acknowledge our endings. My days of cradling a small, soapy head in my hands; of rocking a son to sleep; of carrying a tired boy on my back [...] and of wiping bottoms and talking with teddy bears are over. And I miss them already, miss being needed that much, miss the confidence of knowing so surely where I should be and what I should be doing from one moment to the next.
[...]
They don't stay still long enough for me to have my fill of them ever, at any stage.
[...]
To love them is always to let them go, bit by bit, day after day.
[...]
I began to realize that if I really paid attention to the quality of our days together, I could live them with more faith and joy, and fewer regrets for what might have been. If I took the time to notice things along the way, to really settle into my own life without always rushing ahead, it might be easier to weather the inevitable changes and challenges that come my way. And if we could find our own rhythm as a family, and follow it, we might all discover just what it is that is essential and meaningful in our lives."
*sigh* And *HUG* the little ones.