Dear big kids, we miss you.
We’re your parents and grandparents, and while we’re mostly glad you’re off doing the things you want and need to do, we miss you while you’re doing them.
We miss you when you start driving on your own and we give up car conversations with you…or at least the comfort of being in the same space at the same time with you on a regular basis.
We miss you when you pull away from us.
We miss you when you’re just so busy with good things, you’re rarely home.
We miss you when you give your hearts—or big pieces of them, anyway—to significant others.
We miss you when you serve our country, and our hearts swell with pride at the same time they constrict with worry.
We miss you when you’re in a dorm room on a college campus instead of in your bedroom at our house.
We miss you when your “home” address becomes a city across town or across the country or across the globe.
We miss you when you haven’t done any of these things but might be getting ready to do them, and so we’re missing you ahead of time.
This missing isn’t much fun for us, but in so many ways we’re glad for it, because it’s saying something good.
It’s saying we have relationship and connection with you. It’s saying we have histories with you. It’s saying we have shared memories with you. It’s saying we have future memories to be made with you.
And above all, it’s saying we love you. WE are saying we love you. In all this missing, that’s what we hope you hear most, loud and clear.
by Elizabeth Spencer