We Are Now A Party of Five

 Our oldest got married two weeks ago and it was the most beautiful day. 

The weeks leading up to the wedding were filled with a flurry of plans, dress shopping, wedding shower parties and everything else in between that goes with a wedding. 

I know most of the excitement of that day is centered on the bride, as it should be. But I couldn't help but think this is about the groom too. 

There is a flicker in time, as a mother, when all of the years you have spent pouring into your son come flooding back. It comes quickly and without warning. 

I don't remember everything we said to each other that day but I do know I said "I love you and I'm proud of you" at least a thousand times. I remember what it felt like to hold him and the weight of him in my arms and I realized he wasn't fully mine in the same way anymore. 

I wasn't sad, well maybe a little, but I was mostly proud. Proud of the man he had become. I was grateful for the woman he chose and how she loved him completely. It was a joy filled day.  

But I was quietly grieving something different. I was grieving that something was changed forever.

As I looked at my son several times through out the day, I kept seeing the curly haired little boy that would sit in my lap on the couch, snuggled under the covers and watch Blues Clues. The baseball games and all the stinky and dirty uniforms I washed over the years. The school projects I had helped him with. The family vacations we took. The moments I was just able to be with him and talk with him. All the random things we talked about that some how turned into meaningful conversations. 

The little boy his daddy and I raised was now a man who was stepping into his future. 

And isn't that exactly how it is meant to be? Isn't that the goal? We raise them so they can leave, so they can stand on their own. To find love and a partner who can walk beside them in this life. 

But no one prepares you for how deeply that love for that little boy changed you and shaped you. How fiercely you feel the shift when it's time to let go, to hand them off. 

All the years of praying and saying "be careful, don't speed", of knowing when he just needed you to listen or he needed advice, they all led here. There is a time in-between when you still hold them but you are also releasing him into someone else. And something beautiful happens when you realize you haven't lost him. You have simply had a front row seat to watch everything. And what an amazing seat it has been. 

And now that seat lets you watch the beginning of a new season. For that boy who once needed you for everything is now a man who carries with him everything you taught and shared with him.  

Motherhood changes. Instead of being front and center cheering the loudest, I now cheer from a quieter place. Still strong, steady and providing a soft landing, but now maybe from the second row instead of the first.  

As his bride made her way to the front of alter to meet him, I took an extra moment to just look at him and soak it all in. And in that moment, he was not a groom but simply my son.  

It was worth every moment, every memory, every tear, every smile. Every late night of worry and repeated prayers over his entire life. He was the little boy who stole my heart. 

I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.