its all about family

We had dinner last night with Sam and Will at Jalapeno's in Annapolis. Will had successfully finished a big deal with his company on Friday and was visiting home while Annie is in Australia. He was happy and proud of his work, thinking about grad school. Sam had just finished his baby education class on newborn care at the hospital. Stephanie and Sam's baby is due in late October!! We are all so excited and I wanted to hear all about his "education". What was hysterical was his description of the chocolate pudding laden diapers, which were the teaching tools! I love it. He asked us to sign up for a "grandparent update" class, which I did happily. Anything to help with baby! My first grandchild is a very big deal and deserving of a little updating the old techniques. We have done our whooping cough shots and flu shots and I have the emergency diapers ready!

What truly marked last night as a special moment for me was the quiet realization that "my boys" were now grown men, very separate from me. As I was listening to their conversation and the excited recounting of their day I just "saw" them not as my children, but as uniquely themselves. I was no longer the person to whom they turned for love and acknowledgement,  I was no longer the nucleus of a unit. They had broken away and started their own units. They were the nucleii of their families now. It was a wonderful  moment of letting go and being in awe of the people they had become. Caring, loving, starting amazing adventures with their families. I was still a part, but it had shifted somewhere and I truly saw the "going forward".

Yesterday had been a tough day for me actually. One of my young horses, a weanling, had run across the field with his buddies, bucking and playing, racing each other. Going through a fence gap, this colt had struck the gatepost and broken his leg. I heard the impact and knew right away. So sad. This was a young animal I had helped into the world and fed and groomed and gentled and now I had to help him leave this world. It is part of caring for animals and luckily we were able to gently and swiftly ease his shock and pain. I have wonderful farming friends who help me bury my animals when tragedy happens. But it was a very sad day.  Having my children nearby, giving me a hug, or a phone call, saying they were sorry for me, that they understood and knew it was so hard. That they loved me and wished it hadn't happen meant a lot and eases the ache. It is all about family. And I love that we are becoming families.