A Melancholy Moment

Today we helped move our daughter Hannah and son-in-law Rick into their new house in Marietta. My firstborn and her husband closed on their first house last week. He graduated from Georgia Tech in August 2006; she graduates in December. She is going to be working for the same company where he has been working since graduation. It's in the Marietta/Kennesaw area, and their house is just two miles from their workplace. How proud I am for them, and how excited. The house is only 30 miles from where we live; in this day and age, it would be hard to ask for better. They plan to continue to spend Sundays with us in the short run, both for church and for Sunday lunch and fellowship. The amount of time we see them each week will not appreciably lessen, from all indications.

Still, today was a bit melancholy. Although Hannah left home five years ago to attend Georgia Tech (while the rest of us were living 150 miles away in Dublin, Georgia) and that was definitedly a "new chapter of life," and the wedding 15 months ago was another monumental change, there is something still the same about the family when a child is only "off at college." Their continuing to live at Tech in married housing kept that sense intact, I guess.

But their move to a house (and her in three weeks to a career) somehow solidified in my heart and mind today that we have indeed reached a new epoch, another "bend in the road." This is the end of one aspect of parenting, or more correctly, it is the beginning of the end for a phase of parenting since Cindy and I have four more to go.

So while I am so happy for Hannah and Rick and so excited about the house and so proud for them, I couldn't help but feel a little melancholy as I experienced the emotions today of the changes. This is one of our great goals in parenting, preparing our children for the time when they will truly be "on their own," establishing their own homes and households. That day has come, and we could not be happier for the way Jesus is working in their lives. We realize that the change is not a subtraction but an addition--they will still be part of our household!--but it is still a change. Memories flood back from childhood; she is now "grown and gone."

I can still remember the time in my life when I made the similar transition. Is it possible that I am old enough to be on the other end of it? Wow--time continues to march forward. And for those of you snickering that this is happening to me, a word of warning: it will happen to you MUCH quicker than you think!