The Paradox of Letting Go

I watch you now, my son, and it feels as though time is playing tricks on me. You are the baby I rocked to sleep and the boy who pulls away from my touch, eager to prove his independence. How strange it is that you can embody both—the child I knew and the one I’m just beginning to meet. I’ve read somewhere that every parent loses their child a hundred times, over and over, in small and silent ways. I didn’t understand what that meant before you. Now I feel it every day, in the quiet erosion of time.

You’re losing those round edges, shedding your smallness like a skin you’ve outgrown. And yet, sometimes, I catch glimpses of the little boy you still are. The way your hair falls across your forehead reminds me of when you were a toddler, freshly bathed and wrapped in a towel, your
cheeks pink from the warmth. Your laughter, that glorious sound, is still untouched by the weight of the world. It bubbles out of you so freely, like sunlight spilling through a window. These moments—when I see the boy you were and the young man you’re becoming all at once—take my breath away. How can something so fleeting feel so eternal?

I’m learning that motherhood is a constant act of surrender. I surrender the baby I cradled in my arms to the boy who sprints ahead of me on the playground. I surrender the boy who whispered secrets into my ear to the one who now shuts his bedroom door for privacy. And one day, I know, I’ll surrender the young man standing in front of me to the world, trusting it to treat you with kindness. My heart is full of pride and wonder at the person you are becoming, but there’s also this quiet ache, this longing to hold on just a little longer. To press pause. To savor you in all your in-between-ness.