"My life is going by so fast" she said

We've been talking a lot about kindergarten lately.

Claire had her last day of preschool yesterday. As she was getting ready for school, she told me that she was feeling happy and sad at the same time. Happy because she's going to kindergarten in the fall. Sad because she will miss her preschool teacher Miss Meghan.

After preschool was over, the kids and I went for a walk. "Mom, my life is going by so fast" Claire declared as we walked down 8th Street. "I can't believe I'm going to kindergarten already."

Yes, my darling girl, your life has gone by quickly.

I remember pushing you in the stroller down 8th Street (when the stroller was much much newer and cleaner), I remember when you didn't want to go in the stroller any more but wanted to walk (oh so very slowly) by yourself, I remember when you found out how fast you could fly on Cappy and I had to run to keep up, I remember when you rode your tricycle, I remember last summer when you learned to ride your two wheeler. And, I will remember this moment. Walking on 8th Street, on a warm May afternoon, with the two boys in the stroller and you beside me contemplating life and your place in the world.

Bonnie Miller-McLemore, in her book In the Midst of Chaos - Caring for Children as a Spiritual Practice, (2007) writes about "mundane grief", about how, if "day-to-day parenting is a practice that is deeply spiritual, and if parenting is filled with loss, then learning to grieve within families is essential to our lives with God and one another".

Parents "inevitably begin losing their children as soon as they are born," remarks historican Anne Higonnet. In fact, the word care, according to poet Kathleen Norris, "derives from an Indo-European word mening to 'cry out' as in a lament." In her poem, "Ascension," written as she thinks about her birthing sister bearing down in labor on the day commemorating Jesus' rising to heaven, she pictures the "new mother, that leaky vessel" nursing her child, "beginning the long good-bye." beginning the long good-bye. (p. 180)

Miller-McLemore importantly points out that these moments of mundane grief, these times of letting go also need to be seen as celebrated moments of blessing. After all, a parent's role is to prepare one's child for these new steps and stages.

And so, Claire-bear, as I struggle with letting go and celebrate what you are excited about and ready for, I guess you could say that I feel sad and happy as well.