Tomorrow I will take my son to the MEPS center where he'll be processed and loaded on to a plane to basic training. He's "in the army now"! One of the hardest parts of this leave taking is that he will be gone, really gone, for a long time. And during that time someone else, something else, an institution, will be molding and shaping him as he becomes a man. I will have no part in that and no control over anything. My mothering in any direct way, ends here.

I am mourning for the "loss" of my child. That seems so wrong when I think of the many parents who really have lost a child to illness or accident. But it is a loss, and a letting go just the same. As our children reach the milestones of their lives, I guess there are these watershed moments where you realize that something precious has ended. I'm trying to believe that this is a beginning as well....but really it is a beginning for him, just an ending for me. I'm sad.

I guess this just reminds us of how we must cherish every day with those that we love.