Summer has arrived on the Prairies. The sun is shining and the day lilies are blooming. The tiger lilies will follow soon. I am weeding the garden beds to try to prevent anything from going to seed. And there is a part of me that cannot resist the beauty of dandelions releasing single seeds on the breeze. They are an icon for me of the lessons of letting go. 

There’s been a stretching happening, and it’s given over to the mess and wonder of endings and beginnings. First, my oldest is spreading her wings. Before the next calendar page turns, she will have a diploma in her hands and her belongings in another home. (She’s gone before and returned, and it could happen again, I know.) But it is time for her fly further away from home. 

I can feel all the edges of our relationship bursting at the seams. We have outgrown the garments of this season, and a new kind of space is emerging. Just like new clothes need time and washing to be worn in, she needs to leave for us to find the new comfort in what is next. And we can’t do that until we box up and bid farewell to what is now. I have never been so nostalgic about any of my parenting moments. 

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I keep overstepping, saying too much, earning eye rolls. It’s not that she cannot figure it out. It’s not that I don’t believe she can do it. Ultimately, I don’t quite know how to let her go. 

At the same time, our family is moving to Alberta in July. I am preparing to leave a job I have loved. I have had the privilege of serving extraordinary people beside some of the most compassionate and creative people I have ever met. They are so very capable, and they are ready to do things without me that they could not do while I remain. Even if none of us know what that is yet. 

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Every day at work for the next weeks, I will gently lay my hands on work that will not be mine to finish. I have been called here and am being called away. I am living right in the middle of the letting go. It is tender and taut. There is no right way. Just lots of allowing myself to go to seed. 

Last week, at the close of his 95 years, we buried my grandfather. He was a farmer and a carpenter, a planter of seeds and woodworker of toys and furniture. And he was a builder of my world and faith. He drove the boat the first time I rode on water skis. He prayed the Hail Mary with me before bed on sleepovers and in the hospital before he died. 

My family entrusted me with the Celebration of Life, and I stood looking into the beautiful teary eyes of my grandmother, aunts and uncles, cousins, and more than 50(!) great grandchildren. God gave me words that I needed to hear: There is something that happens in the letting go that cannot happen before. He could not teach us how to die or live without him unless he went. I wish it could be another way. 

There’s all this light filtering through the clouds and the changes in my life. I know it will be miraculous on the other side of things too. But if the letting go doesn’t take all the deepest breaths and most incredible courage. 

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I should know this. I feel it when I go climbing and I get to the top of the wall for the first time in the session. My heart skips as I have to put my trust in the belay. And the space of time and anticipation at the top of a high diving board. The thudding of my heart on the top of the mountain before I snowboard down. 

There are so many beautiful and unanticipated lessons – joys and sorrows – in the letting go. It is time to lift my fingers from the ropes of this season so I can find the finger and footholds in the next.