My Baby Girl's Growing Up

I was just discussing her 19th birthday today, with my youngest. "What are we going to do for Lolly for her birthday?" she asked me. Being nine, the baby and spoiled, she thinks everybody has a birthday party at any age. I keep saying to all four of my kiddos, "I should be the one who gets the presents, after racking up 54 hours of labor, countless nights awake by the toilet wiping your face with a cool rag and all the other MOM stuff." For some reason, they think I'm kidding. So anyway, we never decided what to do, but discussed the possibility of Hurricane Harbor on Lolly's birthday, as that's the day Baby #4 can get her intubated swimmer's ears back in the water. And that's what Lolly wants to do...take her baby brother and sister to the water park. That's the kind of big sister she has always been.
Fast forward a couple of hours of work, phone calls and emails: I'm on FB checking my messages and notifications. I notice my former student, Marco Morales (an up and coming freelance photographer) has posted some new pics. I take a glance and think, "Wow that girl looks a lot like my daughter." Thinking I need to catch up on what Marco's doing anyway, I click on the photo. I was taken aback, but I'm still not sure if it was the image or the subject. True beauty is one thing, but it's not always photogenic. There in front of me was the image of a young woman, her innocence (please contain yourself) of youth somehow captured in time by Marco's lens.
I am perpetually proud of my kids. They are pretty well-adjusted and decent despite my influence and mistakes. But today, I had one of those moments where I feel truly proud to be the mother of that young woman. In that photo, I see not only who she is now, but all of the ups and downs, band-aided boo-boos, "unfair" groundings, mean girlfriends, loser boyfriends, subsequent mama/daughter trips, Grandma mental-health days Grandpa fishing trips and Granny hugs that guided her path, and molded her into the grown woman I saw for the first time today.
As I'm sure most moms do, I worry for my kids, especially the grown ones, as they are responsible for their decisions now. I'm not sure how many moms worry like I do though. I worry my kids will not make decisions for themselves. That they'll let someone else's dreams and desires trump their own and they'll miss opportunities out of their own generosity or misguided love for another person. Life is so very short and so very ONCE.
Today, though, I realize my Lolly's got it together. She's gonna be alright. Her Daddy and I did good. We did real good.

If you'd like to see more of Marco's work, let me know and I'll send you his FB profile info.

Then Now