On A Journey

Six years ago, as I ventured with Becky out to Madison to find housing for her freshman year, I was overcome with emotion as the song Lech Lecha was played over the car stereo. Go out to a land that I will show you, Go forth to a place you do not know, Venture forward on a journey I will send you. And you shall be a blessing. The emotion was unexpected and intense. My daughter was taking the path that young people her age often do, a path much like the one that I had taken thirty years earlier as I departed from my family's home to start my journey - first to college and later to graduate school (from which I never returned to my "homeland"). This time, however, rather than my leaving my parents behind, my daughter was preparing to leave our home to start her journey.

Since that time, Becky has been on many ventures and adventures, but most of the last five years, she was in the neighborhood, just down the road in Providence (and Providence lived up to its name for us). But life moves forward (though not always in a straight line) and today marked the start of another venture assuming ventures have specific places of beginning which is not the case. In reality, today's venture started with Great Beginnings Preschool so many years ago and this is just another leg of the journey. Still, as I (we) watched Anthony and Becky get into her car for their ride to Madison for Becky and Evanston for Anthony, there was a different feeling. I hugged Becky with great love, a longer hug than usual as I did not want to let go, and also with great confidence. The young women I was saying good-bye to (it should have been simply "till we meet again") was the same person who I had shed tears over when sending her to college, but this version of that person was a more mature, confident young women with a sense and sensibility that will carry her through any rough waters and propel her down the flowing river of life.

And I, though the same person who cried to Lech Lecha, am a new version who understands that these partings are not as final as they seem for although there is a physical distance between us, there is a strength of love and an ability to communicate that is better than ever. So, we will rely on calls and video chatting (a new technology for shrinking the physical distance), and visits as we all ride the waters, directing ourselves when we can, accepting the direction of the flow when it overpowers us, and keeping our heads above water when the current is strong.

As my mother was fond of saying, and as I said to Becky today and say to her again when she reads this, I love her (as I do all of my children) with my life.