Last week our oldest, Berel flew off to New York to learn in a Yeshivah and boy was the goodbye at the airport difficult.
He is such a big character and his beautiful and playful personality has contributed so much to us all for seventeen plus two years (for the past two years he has been in a local Yeshivah and popped in most weekends and an occasional dinner during the week).
In our culture, it’s not uncommon that once they fly the coup they go off to study for a few years, get life experience volunteering in different communities and open themselves to love and meeting a life partner. Whether this journey materialises for every individual mostly depends on them and G-d. But this was the unspoken sentiment (not expectation) at the airport farewell.
Technology’s beauty means we can continue to watch and participate in his journey, but now he is a man and we are parents who have completed the first major chapter of parenting. There’s more to come, and we will always be his parents, but it is definitely different, we will be less involved and won’t have the immediate connection parents have with young children.
Sentimentality provokes us to impossibly try to recapture what is now in the past.
Sentimentality also brought me to a non-cerebral realisation where I moved from comprehending knowing: our children are souls who come into our care for a couple decades and we are charged with nurturing, caring for and educating them for their lives. Having children has beautiful perks, but those perks are not the primary reason these souls come into our lives.
We are custodians. For a relatively short time in our lives, a soul is entrusted to us.
They come to us in a moment of love. They see an opportunity to descend into the world knowing that being incarnated into this couple’s home is its greatest chance to experience what it needs to achieve its life purpose. The soul believes that we, as parents, have what it takes to raise it.
And then they walk. They step into their independence and begin to make waves like never before. As parents we step back, let go (somewhat), watching, availing and nachassing.
As much as it joyfully hurts to let them go we give thanks to G-d for the incredible opportunity to shepherd this pure soul into life and pray for the strength and inspiration to shepherd our younger four.