Amanda Lamb: 'I'm listening'

“I’m listening…”

I can’t wait to see my daughters. I mean it, I can’t wait. Sure, we talk on the phone, FaceTime, and text multiple times a week, but it’s not the same as seeing them in person. I feel like this isn’t something anyone tells you about parenting, about the longing you have for your children once they leave the nest.

Thankfully, we have a trip planned this month where we will all be together in one city for 48 hours. It’s not enough time, but this will do for now to satisfy my need to hug them, to look them in the eyes, and to really get a sense of how they are doing, something that you can’t truly manage over a video chat.

And for now, we’re all in limbo. They’re young and following their dreams. I have no idea, nor do they, about where they will eventually end up. Given this, we can’t exactly pick up and move closer to them. And who knows if they will end up living close to one another. Again, more limbo.

So, I have to be satisfied for the time-being with short visits, stolen moments with them as they create their futures. But one thing I know for certain about my future is that I intend to be an integral part of their dynamic lives going forward. I don’t know what this looks like yet, but I do know that if and when they “settle down” in one location, I plan to be there as much as possible.

I think about my own mother, and her deathbed regret. There was really only one thing that she vehemently expressed—that she worked more hours than she spent with us. “Don’t do what I did,” she said. She had hoped that she would have many more years with her children and grandchildren. She had a five-year plan to retire and move to North Carolina from Pennsylvania. It didn’t happen until she was dying.

I’m listening, Mom. I’ve got this.