So early this morning I kissed my sixteen-year-old son Lachlan goodbye. He has left our nest; he has spread his wings. Despite steeling myself for months for this moment, it didn\u2019t lessen the wrench on my heart as I waved him goodbye.<\/p>\n
I am not worried about Lachlan moving to the other side of the world to pursue his passion and dream of one day playing Division one college basketball. I don\u2019t fret for a moment that he will make foolish choices. I don’t fear for his safety (well, not much.) I\u2019m not even worried that he won\u2019t stay in touch as much as I\u2019d like. He is a warm, wise and thoughtful young man and I could not have greater faith in him.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m just sad that he will no longer be part of my daily life, of our family\u2019s daily life. Sad that I won\u2019t see him every morning at breakfast. Sad that he will no longer walk in the door after school each day to tell me about the funny thing that happened in his Chinese class with his favorite Miss Ting. Sad that I will no longer hear him shooting countless hoops with his brothers outside my office door (as distracting as it often was.)\u00a0 Sad too that he will no longer sit around our dinner table at night chiding his three siblings for their bad jokes, contributing his own. I will even miss him not appreciating my singing!<\/p>\n
As I type this now I am crying. I\u2019m also sitting on a plane flying to New Zealand to speak at a leadership conference on building a \u2018Culture of courage\u2019. Ironic really. Because while I\u2019ve never led an organization, it would seem my husband and I have done a particularly good job at creating a culture of courage in our own home. Too good some might argue. But as my cousin Joan said when Lachlan first applied to this high school in Virginia and I had my very first round of tears, \u201cDid you really think your kids weren\u2019t listening to you Margie? He\u2019s just doing what you encourage everyone to do – to aim high,\u00a0 dream big, take a risk and be courageous.\u2019<\/p>\n
Damn it! Maybe it\u2019s just my pleas to clean their rooms my kids tune out to!<\/p>\n
Of course I am immensely proud of Lachlan\u2019s courage. Just as I am his strong character and gentle kindness. But that doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not sad, really really<\/i> sad, to see him go.<\/p>\n
Which is why I’ve been introduced to a new brand of bravery; a new dimension of courage – \u00a0the courage of a parent to encourage their children to pursue their dreams, despite the risk that they may not achieve them, and in spreading their wings, even when it means moving far (in my case 10,000 miles-far<\/em>) from home. At the core of what I’ve learned from Lachlan leaving home is that there\u00a0are many different ways we are called to be courageous throughout the course of our lives. Sometimes we are called to step outside our comfort zone – to make a change or take a chance. Other times we’re called to get fully present to our sadness and all that tugs on our hearts. A lot tugged on this mother’s heart today.<\/p>\n There will inevitably be days throughout when we \u00a0have to be braver than we want to be. Today, that has meant releasing my grip from the hardest hug of my life and waving Lachlan goodbye. It has also meant letting the tears I\u2019ve tried to fight back for days finally flood down and getting fully present to the deep sense of loss that has been so real and raw for me all week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So early this morning I kissed my sixteen-year-old son Lachlan goodbye. He has left our nest; he has spread his wings. Despite steeling myself for months for this moment, it didn\u2019t lessen the wrench on my heart as I waved him goodbye. I am not worried about Lachlan moving to the other side of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20,13,14,15],"tags":[39,43,84,142,208,234,574,742,805,837,871,903,1050],"class_list":["post-9463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting","category-build-resilience","category-lead-purposefully","category-live-passionately","category-speak-bravely","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-attitude","tag-bravery","tag-comfort-zone","tag-courage","tag-letting-go","tag-passion","tag-purpose","tag-relationships","tag-risk-taking","tag-self-confidence","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/margiewarrell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}