Lori texted our friend Emily, letting her know we had been praying for her son, Connor, and their family as they moved him into one of the freshman dorms at the University of Kentucky. Years earlier, I had baptized Connor, so I felt connected to him as a part of his spiritual journey. Emily posted some pictures and shared her mixed emotions—feelings common to parents at that moment: sadness, anxiousness, and happiness. Having raised four ourselves, Lori and I could identify.
Often unrecognized, fear is an emotion that fuels a parent’s anxiety when kids leave home. It’s the fear of letting go, of no longer being the one who is steering them safely to shore at those critical moments when, in the absence of the parent, children would surely shipwreck, or so we think.
If parents aren’t attentive to themselves, they become “what if” victims, where the child’s every imaginary choice becomes the fulcrum for a series of events ending in disaster.
Unwittingly, the caring mother or father becomes like that innocent parent sunbathing on the beach who suddenly looks up from reading or napping and, not immediately seeing the children, instantly envisions a shark attack, a riptide, or a kidnapper and, in a panic, flings the book or magazine in the air, sprinting toward the water—only to find the children frolicking in the sand, joyfully building sandcastles.
Sitting back down beneath the umbrella, the parent calls herself the silly one to worry, relaxing again—but not entirely—for there is always that possibility that out there, near the water, on the beach, beneath the sun (As Ecclesiastes wrote, “Under the sun,” and Manfred Mann sang: “But, mama that’s where the fun is,”), sandcastles will crumble.
And they will.
Such is the burden of parenthood. We’re there but not there, sleeping with one eye open, checking their whereabouts, or imagining we are in some weird way with them. Maybe Cooper’s (Matthew McConaughey) mom in the film, “Interstellar,” had it right: “Once you become a parent, you become the ghost of your children’s future.”
Not all children leave home for college. College isn’t the point. Some make career choices that don’t require a college degree, while others stay home. The point is, it’s better to let them go, let them explore the beach, and let them build their sandcastles without parental supervision. Not being in control can be scary, for it carries the possibility of failure. But it’s freeing—yes, healthy—for everyone.
Letting them go isn’t the same as indifference. Even though parents are not there, they can pray, interceding for them as the Psalmist did for himself: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).
My parents moved me into a dorm at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, five driving hours away from home. Mom was having trouble letting go of “her baby.” To make matters more challenging, I was a lovesick kid, leaving Lori, my high school girlfriend, back home. It was a veritable trail of tears. Dad was ready to be done with the ordeal. “Either stay or go,” I felt him saying, though he didn’t.
We were shopping in Waco for dorm supplies. All the while, I was moping from aisle to aisle. Maybe it was somewhere between the aisle for toiletries and bedding that Dad looked back at me with a combination of anxiety and exasperation, then shaking his head, grumbled to Mom, “He’s never going to make it. He’ll be back at junior college (in Altus, Ok) by Labor Day.” To this day, I wonder if Dad was relieved at the thought of me returning home or fearful that I would.
But I didn’t return, although the path forward was winding, often hazy, rarely obvious, and always filled with the wonder of His grace. Sandcastles crumbled along the way, though thanks to the Solid Rock, they weren’t washed away in vain. Mom and Dad kept praying for me, and though they weren’t there, I knew they could be (Dad’s parting words to me: “We’re only a phone call away”), while God was lighting my path, even when I didn’t recognize it.
Always with the same Light.
Shining on the same mysterious, intriguing path.
Where sandcastles are still being built.