One of the pleasures of growing older is watching all the children I have known over the years grow up and move into their adult lives. One of these people I have known for years, I met as an energetic, creative, and original four-year-old. She was friends with my daughter and together they invented, played in the mud, and continually asked for snacks they did not need. Over the years I watched her excel in school and sports, playing soccer and field hockey on her high school teams, and then after college, going on to graduate school to get a master’s degree.
Now I am watching a video of her daughter, a high school student, (how did that happen!) playing in a virtual recital from her living room. Her child is front and center of the Zoom screen playing beautifully on her instrument, and in the background one can just see her mother intently watching. The musical world was not part of the mother’s growing up, for she was gifted in sports, but here she is with a sweet smile on her face as her daughter finishes a particularly difficult run on her flute. Her quiet pride in her child’s accomplishment is very apparent on her face.
It struck me as I watched this scene unfold before me on the screen, that this is what true parenthood is all about. This daughter is not following in her mother’s athletic footsteps, but taking another path in expressing herself, and this mother, who I can still see plying her field hockey stick with great effectiveness, is taking delight in her daughter’s path.
What a gift to allow everyone to be who they truly are, with no pressure to perform in a certain way or follow exactly in the footsteps of those who have gone before. What a lovely person this long ago child has grown into.