Pray, Smile, and Let Go

Hillary Ibarra reflects on motherhood and growth following her daughter’s graduation.

Half of my four children have graduated from high school. I haven’t had time to fully process that, to sit on the edge of my bathtub and cry over their baby pictures balanced on my trembling knees. Between work, volunteering at my oldest daughter’s school and maintaining my home—a full-time job, don’t be mistaken—I have plowed through the last few months, praying for strength and skills to fulfill the stream of obligations and tackle challenges. My daughter’s graduation, graduation party, and track championships happened amid this stream, and I didn’t reflect enough for shedding tears on graduation day or on meet day when medals clanged around her neck. The tears flowed instead as I thanked her track coaches for building her confidence in a powerful way over her high school years—something which I tried to do but which they accomplished better.

Soon after my daughter’s graduation, my college son left to study abroad for 10 weeks. He missed his connecting flight in LA and arrived in Spain late, and his luggage still hasn’t met him there. I felt guilty after I dropped him at the airport because I didn’t throw him a going away party or bake him a special dessert amid the travel preparations. And then I worried about him wandering in a foreign country and texted him in the middle of that night to see if he was safe at his hotel. He was safe and sent pictures of beautiful cathedrals and palaces in Madrid.

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Despite my recent lack of reflection space, I still feel wistful because my children have grown so quickly, tumbling through the years with scraped knees and park playdates before running through them with AP exams and pick-up games and shopping with friends. My oldest children will soon be free of my annoying habit of repeating important life lessons “just one more time so you remember them when you need to.” I hope they do remember those lessons. The time never feels enough, even counted, God willing, in hugs and conversations and apologies and laughter and adventures, to prepare them for everything.

But far more than wistful, I feel excited about my children’s futures. My children are grasping growth and opportunities, and praise God for their willingness and courage to chase horizons.

I pray I have given my children abundant gifts for their journeys. A mother is knowledge, creativity, wisdom, song, stories, dancing, joy, comfort and hope for her children. And discipline. And Instruction. She brings all the gifts with which God endowed her and uses them to raise her children, and the world benefits from that sacrifice.

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Still, I believe I have gotten the greater bargain in being my children’s mother. A searchlight was beamed on my heart, mind and soul from their smooth little faces, and I came to know myself better through my offspring. I grew. I reformed. I became a better mother with, through and in Jesus than I ever could have been without Him.

I thank God and my children for making me feel like I cradled the love of God in my arms on the day of their birth, held God’s love for years in my arms and saw it reflected joyfully in my children’s brown and blue eyes. I’m grateful that in my struggle to parent my children well, I discovered my greatest weaknesses and was inspired to strive against those shortcomings. I thank God that when I was exhausted and wanted to crawl to my bed and cling to my pillow, I found the strength to listen to my children’s late-night concerns and gained greater understanding and compassion.

I thank God for their questions, about faith and myriad complex things, that challenged me to think more deeply or in a different way. I thank God for their talents that inspired and entertained me. I thank God for the conversations about the cosmos with my oldest son, galaxies spinning in our minds as we contemplated God’s vast universe. I thank God that through all the trials and joys of parenting, I got the great pleasure of seeing my children evolve into who they are now.

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The time never feels enough, even counted, God willing, in hugs and conversations and apologies and laughter and adventures, to prepare them for everything. #catholicmom

Yes, I’m wistful whenever I walk through a toy aisle, by a playground, or hear the laughter of children floating from the elementary school near our home because my children are no longer small. But I’m grateful, glad, and excited, too, as I watch my oldest children head to college and travel and meet with advisors and mentors other than me. The years I have with their younger siblings before they spring into adulthood will be cherished, but when they too bravely grasp opportunities that lead them away from home, I will hug them tight, pray, smile, and let go.

And that is what we moms who have watched the years speed by more swiftly after each birthday aim to do: raise them well, hug them often, listen always, and send them forth into their futures with a prayer and a smile, trusting God to walk with them wherever they go.

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