Dear Mom e-Letter
Remembering, Celebrating, Healing

Volume I, Issue 9
Letting Go

Dear Reader:

Life is a confluence of emotions that run together, like two rivers merging at a point, becoming one. While each river of emotion deserves reflective time, sometimes reality is just a bit too hurried, and so we proceed, unaware, struggling, celebrating, emotions swirling like in the merging waters.

Last week I ordered the second printing of Dear Mom: Remembering, Celebrating, Healing. That was a big deal for someone who had honestly hoped to sell two books—assuming one would be bought by the friend who first encouraged me to publish! Yet, in the midst of celebrating the joy of a book that has helped people remember and celebrate the gifts of their mother’s life, my own life was changing rapidly as my daughter prepares to move tomorrow to Tennessee.

Kelsey graduated from college in May, moved home for the summer, and is about to move, via our truck, which will be loaded today. The move evokes feelings of loss, joy and so many memories as we sort through cherished things and junk. She’s getting married next summer, and today, in the midst of packing, we’ll run to the bridal store to look at her new choice in dresses. That evokes another set of feelings—joy and poverty combined, sort of flowing into the bigger feelings of she’s really leaving.

Dear Mom has had its own set of feelings. At first, I thought the book was a way to share the healing I’d received by writing my late mom a series of letters. And it was. But it was something more. It’s about the myriad of feelings that come with celebrating a mother’s life, her lessons, and her values.

One letter in particular comes to mind this week. “Did You Cry?” is the title of the letter I wrote asking Mom if she cried when I went to college. Germanic, Catholic and seldom showing sad emotions, I never saw Mom cry when I left home. But when I look at my daughter doing simple things around the house, I cry, thinking she’s really leaving. When I see her packing, cleaning, boxing things she wants to leave, I cry, knowing she’s really leaving. I cry, knowing she’s doing the right thing, hoping she’s doing the right thing, always wanting to protect and be there, knowing I’ll be there now via telephone and e-mail.

Kelsey’s leaving home, and I’m thinking of Mom. I saw Mom cry only once, and it wasn’t over my leaving home.

Ok, so I made it easier for her to say goodbye. I wasn’t a saint when I was a kid. I didn’t wear a halo. I gave her a good run for her money. My brother contends kids behave that way because it’s nature’s way of making it easier to say goodbye to them when they leave.

I’m sure there will be moments when we’re packing, driving 16 hours, unpacking and helping her settle when it will be much easier to let go and say goodbye. I remind myself that it’s a good thing. Right?

Have you been there? Have you let go of someone—sending a child to college, a mom to her grave?

Letting go is hard. Maybe that’s why we get so much practice at it. Last spring I let go of Dear Mom after working myself to exhaustion with book signings and presentations. Letting go resulted in the delay in getting this E-Letter to you, but it’s in a much better system and I think it looks better. I’d love to know what you think, and would encourage you to share it with anyone who may be helped by it. And if someone you know would benefit from Dear Mom, please send them to my web site: www.DearMomBook.com, where they can read the first chapter and sign up for this newsletter as well.

Letting go of Mom was the single hardest thing I’ve done, and 16 years later, there are still moments when I think of her and a tear comes to my eye. Maybe she didn’t cry when I left home. Or maybe I just never saw the tears.

Either way, it’s OK. When I think of Mom today, and Kelsey moving away, I smile. I think Mom’s enjoying the chaos of this day, the rivers of those emotions merging together, of me being a mom, trying once again, to learn to go with the flow instead of swimming upstream.

It’s life, filled with emotions. And learning to let go is a just part of the journey.

Thanks for sharing the journey called Dear Mom!

Dee Dee

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Copyright 2006