After consultation with my daughters about 17 years ago, I made the decision to move to Denver. And though these have been by and large successful years, there was a nagging ache that I was missing some important years in my children’s lives.
My only solace was retirement and the opportunity to be near my daughters again. It was a driving factor and one that allowed me to cross the days off the calendar as the date neared. Facetime, Skype and telephone calls managed the void, allowing me to stay connected in a virtual world. Unable to physically help with wedding plans, I was at least on the ground floor, hearing from the “supervisor” (the bride-to-be) and the employees (the bride’s sisters). A wedding is a magical family time; full of anticipation, angst, laughter and surprise.
In my eyes the biggest gift was my re-entrance into my daughter’s lives. They had graciously granted me quality time for me while they sought their own journeys of adventure and love. I justified to myself that I could also find happiness while they pursued theirs during the prime of their youth.
One child took to the high seas and forged a successful career as a cruise director for a multi-national company, switched careers and moved into the non-profit world. A second daughter spent time a jungle of Guyana building a school and clearing a forest for an indigenous tribe; planting tree seedlings in barren hinterlands, hiking the foothills of the Himalayas, and teaching children on a remote northern Indian reservation before finding her career as a high school teacher.
The youngest girl endured harder times, unbeknownst to me. Leaving her home as a middle teen, she went through the rollercoaster of life, drinking and smoking and carousing with the fringe of society. It took a strong intervention from her big sister and a caring aunt to wean her off the shackles she had imposed on herself.
Using her bilingual languages she landed a good-paying job with a sugar manufacturer. It, in turn, led her to event planner for a national chain, but she was not fulfilled. A weekend seminar on massage therapy showed her the light. An intensive three-year course resulted in not only her RMT degree, but also a doula certification, for work with expectant mothers.
As I neared retirement I realized I had accomplished the ultimate goal: three children who avoided the pitfalls that many young people encounter and who had found challenging and satisfying employment for themselves with supportive and loving partners. I looked forward to re-joining their lives.
The punch to the gut was the news I did not expect. Six weeks following the wedding my youngest girl and her new husband would be re-locating to the Pacific shoreline in a Central American country to manage a newly-constructed villa.
Their life dream. They were following the wind beneath their wings. My imagined reunion fluttered away like a withered leaf tumbling along the ground. She had found her ‘road less travelled’. We had all left her at some point she told me; it’s my turn now she explained. I could not argue with that. My baby was now an adult and she was right. I have to let her go.
