Cherishing the Small Moments

When Sabrina was four months old, she had a well-visit that could only be scheduled during my working hours. I had returned to work at the Merchant & Gould, the patent and trademark law office where I worked as a Patent Specialist. The primary purpose of said job (as opposed to being a graduate student) was to help support my husband's pursuit of a law degree. I had returned to work two weeks early, after only ten weeks, because my boss called in a panic -- desperate to have me return to take over my files. After ten weeks "off" I thought I was ready to go back to work. I missed being productive and collaborating and socializing with my friends at work. My sweet and devoted mother, who -- with the wisdom which you can only gain from experience -- knew that my heart would break leaving my daughter at a daycare and became my primary caregiver for Sabrina - with the loving help from my in-laws, who cared for her once a week as well.

Not only did she take care of my precious baby, but each morning she appeared at my doorstep at seven in the morning and collected not only my child and my dirty laundry as well. I would appear on her doorstep nearly eleven hours later to pick up my sweet girl and the neatly folded laundry as well. On the first day of returning to work, I realized within the first two hours of work that I wasn't ready to go back to work, that I didn't miss my job, and that my colleagues were fine without me.

Unfortunately, as the primary breadwinner,  I had to work, we had bills to pay, and my husband had a year and a half more years of law school left. So, I did what so many other mothers do every day, I packed up my baby and all her accouterments and went to work. Each evening when my child was home, I cherished her. My mom would let her nap right before I arrived to pick her up so that she would be awake for me. My mom would avoid feeding her so that when I came to pick her up, I could nurse her, or as she grew older, feed her dinner. My mother knew, she remembered how quickly those days would pass. She supported me in my job because she knew I had no choice, but with her wisdom, she knew that being apart from my precious girl was tremendously difficult.

Sabrina and her childhood best friend, Sarah.

Back to that four-month well visit - I didn't even take the entire day because after maternity leave I had to save precious sick hours. I took the half-day off, it was a bright, sunny April day, and in the miracle of a mother's luck, it was a beautiful day. By early afternoon we were done with our doctor's visit and headed to Lake Calhoun to enjoy every extra moment of our stolen day together. We parked the car and I threw a blanket on the still-brown grass, and we laid in the sun together. I gazed at her, marveling at her amazing perfection, we played games, I tickled her and treasured every moment because I knew even then that these days were fleeting and would not last forever. That day is engraved in my memory as one of the most precious days of my life, a day when Sabrina and I connected on a level that only a mother and a child can. I always said that having a daughter was like having an extension of your body, and that day was a day in which that was the case, we didn't need words, we didn't need anyone else, together the two of us were in our little universe.

Today,  I said goodbye to my sweet baby girl, that same sweet extension of my body, at college. As most of my friends drop their children off twenty minutes, two hours, or even ten hours away, my daughter chose a college on the opposite coast from our home. As she makes a new home for herself in California, at Scripps College, I will have to rearrange my home and my heart to accommodate the hole that her absence leaves in our home and our lives,

Sabrina left the house in June, pursuing her dreams for the summer and working at a camp. Since then, I have begun a new career, and although I missed her, I was so busy with my new job and traveling that I was able to hide the fact that she is no longer a child in my home. This week, I met her in California to help her move into the next stage of her life, her first step away from childhood and into her adulthood. I arrived on Monday, and it was almost a strange reunion --  it took a few hours to come back to the place where she felt like an extension of myself. By that evening, we had toured her campus together, eaten a picnic dinner, and settled into our hotel room together. With her typical explosion of clothing and belongings, I was reminded of the fact that once upon a time, we did everything together. You see, after two years of working full-time, I became a full-time mother. My sweet Sabrina, Willem, Theo and I, we faced the world, a new home, and a new life together. In the years since that four-month well visit, we experienced a four-month bed-rest with Willem; we faced her diagnosis of Marfan Syndrome at four; we faced Theo's [false] diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease, a four-month bed rest with two surgeries, and we faced a move to Virginia. We weathered a separation and divorce from her father; we found Randy, her stepfather, and I watched her develop a loving and trusting relationship with him.


As the years progressed, my sweet girl became more complicated. Sabrina faced the challenges that so many adolescents face. She felt excluded and bullied. Her height made her feel separated from her friends, as did her exclusion from sports. She buried herself in her art -- and as a result, she became a recognized artist in our community, and her artwork sold, won and influenced others. Finally, she discovered swimming, and soon after that, weight loss. Which eventually this became an obsession, and eventually anorexia. Those anorexic days were the hardest we faced together: anger, frustration, hunger, pain, re-feeding, depression, anxiety - for all of us. We held each other, we cried, we struggled, we triumphed. That girl, she's strong as hell. She fought for her life, and she survived. I am proud to say, in the end she is stronger, both physically, and in her faith.

New York City - Sweet Sixteen

All these experiences and challenges brought us together. We encountered problems, and we overcame them together. Sabrina has been my child, my rock, my other me, and now she is becoming her own woman, with her very own and separate set of dreams and challenges, apart from mine.

What does it mean to raise a strong woman? It means giving her the strength and confidence to leave your side, to live her own life, to follow her own dreams, and to make her own path. When Sabrina and her step-mom first told me about Scripps, I hated the idea. Can you blame me? She had just struggled through the most dangerous affliction that girls in our society face. She had overcome it, but let's be real, no eating disorder is ever actually overcome. Why would I send my child across the continent? Why wouldn't I put her in a school nice and close, where I could helicopter over her weekly, if not daily?

Raising a strong woman means letting her follow her own dreams, and making her own path. I knew I didn't want her to move away. But when I had wanted to go to Virginia, I did, when I wanted children, I had them, when I wanted to change careers, I did. Raising a strong woman means letting her go. So, Scripps it is.

During the last four days, I have come to see that my trust in Sabrina - and frankly her step-mother Valerie, was right. She is home. She has found her tribe. When I saw her walk through the campus, when she met her classmates, as I watched her purchase all her dorm room bedding and decorations, and she selected her school books and materials, I saw that she was happy, that this place empowered her. Raising a strong woman means letting go, trusting in them to make choices about their lives, and supporting them through their own challenges, failures, and successes.

Sabrina, as I hugged you, and as you walked away from me tonight, I felt closer to you than I ever have. I envy you your future, the power you have over who you will become and I will always support and love you.  I will treat our time together just as I did when I worked and our time was limited. I will cherish every moment we have together.