Thursday, September 8, 2011

"They Grow up too Soon!"

Since I've been communicating with many wonderful friends on Facebook, reading people's comments about the seasons of their lives, I've been mulling around in my mind (especially now as school starts) the reactions of mothers/grandmothers to kids' GROWING UP. 

One time when our Max,Jr. was in Mexico still with the Mission, I had the neatest dream about him--or rather, about the baby boy he'd BEEN.  There he was, sitting up against a pillow on the bed, smiling delightedly at me!  He was 6 or 7 months old, and wearing his little white terrycloth pj suit.  I was so glad to see him!  I looked into his twinkling blue eyes and exclaimed, "MAXIE!  I haven't seen you in such a long time!"  That was the whole dream. 

I told him about it later.  Somehow, I said, it had seemed I was communicating with him on a level of  his consciousness where that little boy still lived. I sensed a spiritual connection, as though this child were included in my prayers for my grown-up missionary son.  That's too deep to go much farther into, isn't it?  But there was truth there, and it was beautiful. When we were all praying up here for the young orphanage director with a burst appendix, we were praying also for little Maxie-boy!  Psychologists talk about the "inner child" in each person; it's there, a part of us. In a way, we are all we've ever been.  And if that "all" is redeemed, God can use every bit of it for His glory!

But I have something of a problem with saying, as our "young sprouts" shoot up, "They're growing too fast"!  No, they are growing according to God's perfect timetable.  We need to affirm that, and them.  We need to enjoy who they are at every turn of the road, not wish they were babes playing at our feet again.  For if indeed they were, even at age fifteen or twenty, our sorrow would know no bounds! That person's development would be warped and stunted, and we'd always wonder what he/she might have become if
things had progressed normally. So when we see them at one more milepost, let's cheer them on, as I saw one mother recently do, with "Congratulations!  I'm so proud of you!"

One time my little mom was asked, "When was the happiest time of your life?"  And she answered, "I  think it was when I had my two children small at home."  I remember being a little disappointed to hear that response.  It sounded as if she hadn't wanted us to grow up and live our own lives.  But later on she wrote a poem that corrects my one-time misapprehension.  I can't quote it all, but the last quatrain goes like this:

The loving father slipped away;
The mother is old and bent and gray.
She draws from her children strength and joy--
Her wonderful, grown-up girl and boy!

Well, thanks up there, Mom!  George and I were truly blest kids!

2 comments:

  1. You always have a great way of saying things. I've thought about my kids growing up often and used to wish when they were little that they could just stay little. But I also realized that I wouldn't want that because that would mean that they weren't progressing as they should. I have truly enjoyed each of their ages/stages, (okay, middle school not so much), and am enjoying seeing the young women they are becoming. I have been truly blessed to be their mom!

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  2. "In a way, we are all we've ever been." That and a few other things written, including the excerpt from your mother's poem, are good thoughts to consider and think about for a while, thanks grandma.

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