My First Born and I are dancing around the house, swirling
through the kitchen and living room while we belt out the opening song from
Beauty and the Beast. She is like a fluttering little bird as she sings and
prances around, completely immersed in her role as Belle bringing life to a
poor provincial town.
This is one of her favorite Disney movies and she has
several parts memorized verbatim so that she can act them out at a moment’s
notice. It takes everything in me not to reveal a smile over her rendition of
Belle’s search for her father in a magical mirror. It is academy award worthy.
I am in awe of how quickly she has grown into this little
dynamo from the helpless, tiny infant I first held just a few years earlier.
Long nights trying to soothe a colicky baby by singing Elvis Presley’s “Are You
Lonesome Tonight” are distant memories, replaced by her endless “why”
questions. As a four-year-old she informs me she wants to be a ballerina doctor
when she grows up. I pray she’s not in a hurry to grow up. It’s hard for me to
picture her as anything but innocent, dependent, Mommy’s little girl.
Then I blink.
She is in the driver’s seat of our car, where I apply the
imaginary brakes each time we round a corner or approach traffic. Like so many
teenage girls, she does not display the confidence she exuded in her childhood
days, but she is willing herself to fly to the next branch. I don’t know how
encouraging I am during these drives. I only know in time it will take her away
from me… but we didn’t bring her into this world to teach her to stay in park.
I watch her drive away.
Time slips past like sea mist, brushing against our cheeks
and disappearing into the warmth of summer. It propels us forward to a few
weeks into her freshman year at college where, over dinner for her 18th
birthday, we are introduced to The Boy.
Maybe neither of them knows it at this moment, but their
lives will intertwine in the sweetest of ways. They will fall in real love and
flourish. They will also have some tough times of their own, especially after
graduation when they try to maintain a relationship with too many miles between
them.
And then a decision is made. A suitcase is tightly packed. A
bus is boarded, and she is on her way to a new life in a new city, following
her heart’s desire - The Boy.
We all know life is not a fairy tale. The voice of
experience will tell them that communication will elude them, and that love and
understanding may be the furthest thing from their minds at times. And I hope
they don’t believe couples that say they have never gone to bed angry, because
everybody goes to bed angry a time or two. It is what happens the next day that
matters. It’s the other coffee mug you pour, or the last slice of banana bread
you leave. Sometimes it is tears, sometimes a silly joke that helps to break
the ice that formed the night before. Whatever it is, it will bring you to that
place where you can communicate again.
It isn’t easy, I tell her as I hold her in my arms, as I
watch her dance, as I wave when she drives away. It isn’t easy, my heart
tremulously whispers as I witness love enveloping them both.
But it is worth
it.
Today my First Born dances in a beautiful wedding dress,
swirling around the dance floor in the arms of her husband. It isn’t a fairy
tale.
It is simply their love story.
Beautiful!
ReplyDelete