Letting Go

Written by Doraine Bennett

Inspiration

The utter delight of holding my newborn daughter made me think the ordeal of labor had been worth the trouble. The relief of having her outside my body rather than inside whitewashed the memory of those long hours. It did not take long, however, to realize that the physical release of baby from womb was only the beginning of a process that would last a lifetime. As she grew, each new phase of life required me to labor at letting go.

I noticed a trifling sense of loss when, at two, she demanded her first small measure of independence. "Me do it!" she protested fiercely one morning when I tried to put on her socks. It didn't mean she no longer needed me, but as a Richter scale measures the smallest tremors, her gestures heralded change.

By seven her antics on the playground scared me silly. Unable to endure the sight of her flights toward freedom, release often came with closed eyes and a quiet prayer. As she stumbled into adolescence looking for her own identity, testing the validity of her beliefs, and making her own choices, letting go sometimes seemed a Herculean task. But nurture, by its very definition, is the provision of sustenance so that the child can stand on her own. So, little by little, I continued to let go.

The process was often as painful emotionally as birthing was physically. Physical labor began slowly and built toward the moment when I propelled that new, living being outside my body. Emotional release also began slowly, with such things as donning socks and climbing on jungle gyms. Eventually the process culminated in propelling her into adulthood.

A few weeks before my daughter's wedding, her emotions were running rampant. On one difficult afternoon, she trudged outside in an attempt to calm herself down. When a storm blew her back into the house, I looked up to see her face wet with tears and rain. She plunked down in a chair, still distressed, but unable to contain the raging emotions any longer.

She sat before me, beautiful yet fragile-a child teetering on the brink of womanhood. The child still longing for the security of her mother's hand. The woman longing to step into a world of her own making. I knew what she needed, but it was hard to acknowledge that my mothering days were coming to a close with this usually sweet child. It would have been easy to scold her for the storms she had stirred up. That wasn't what she needed. She needed to know how to let go, too. She needed me to me to say, "There's a wonderful life ahead. Don't be afraid to go."

At the moment of delivery, the urge to push is so intense it commands one singular response. The process of letting go, however, offers us a choice. Pain sometimes causes us to hold onto things. Clinging to our children is not a safe choice-not for mother, not for child. It is release that brings life. And in that new life, there is great joy.

As the parent of four children and the grandmother of six, Doraine Bennett has survived motherhood's many stages. The Columbus, Georgia writer is also editor of the Infantry Bugler, a quarterly magazine, and author of 17 nonfiction books through State Standards Publishing. Her newest book, Readers Theatre for Global Explorers (Libraries Unlimited) is nearly complete . Find out more about Doraine and her writing at www.DoraineBennett.com.