A little hanging on, A little letting go

Because I have rejoined my writer's group, I sat down today with my "writer's cap" on and as I often do, I started with the title. I also start by re-reading the post from last time.

Wow. I couldn't believe the previous post title was "from mourning to dancing". I hadn't even remembered that!

Since you last heard from me, my mother, who had just received that good news, passed away suddenly on July first, just 2 weeks after the court decision...

I came here today to share about the process, and realized that I had already addressed mourning last time, yes in the title, but also in the years of caring for Mom as she was slipping behind the curtain. Talk about foreshadowing...

Now, back to the title. We have had two major events of letting go in the past two months, one was the passing of my mom, and the other was my son leaving home for college last week. He is still local, but he is no longer living here.

In the case of my Mom, the hanging on is keeping things that remind us of her, having conversations about "remember when? or I liked it best when..." This type of hanging on is a good kind, we encourage each other when we do so.

With my son, I can see that sometimes hanging on is not so good. It's when I start to fret over what he might forget to do, I feel compelled to "remind" him or check up on him to make sure he's following through. That's when I realize it's letting go time.

It's funny, just when I determined to do so, I was blessed in that it wasn't all or nothing because he has reached out a couple times for assistance in navigating his new situation or just to touch base.

In the same way, it's not all or nothing with my mom either. There is no "checking in" as she is no longer with us, so that's a definite "letting go", but there is the legacy of how she would have handled things or what she would have wanted which I  find myself wanting to hang on to as I make decisions regarding her estate. One of the biggest things in that category is that she was over the moon about my son going to the college of his choice.

So while I am letting go of her presence here on earth and his presence in our home, I am hanging on to her grand desire for him and his dreams for the future.