Where did that little girl go?

I was flipping through a magazine geared to women over forty. I am about 22 years too late for that deal. However, I read a post about a mother who didn't wonder where her daughter had gone, she wondered where that little girl who was always with her, body, mind and spirit, had gone? Yes, that's the question. Where did my own daughter go? For so many years we were as one, but now she is very apart from me. And guess what? That means I succeeded. She is the woman I wanted to raise, a woman who is indepdendent, self-reliant, successful and thriving.

But I still wonder where that little toddler is who raced to the door when I came home from work and held out her hands, big smile on her perfect face, saying, "Up, up, up..." and I picked her up and lived the rest of the evening with her seated on one hip or the other. Afterall, you only need one hand to cook dinner, one hand to draw a bath, one hand to clear a table...one hand for anything else. My Susanne was an extension of me; now she is herself and I am so proud. At times I try to be an extension of her -- a role that never works because I just don't have the talent. At such times, she brings me up short. When we get together, all I see is the adoring toddler, but all she sees is the real, warts-covered me. She lives in Vancouver, thus our encounters are infrequent. Nonetheless, I continue to delude myself that she remains the toddler and I the major object of her devotion. This is not the case and for that I have done my job as a mother.

Happily, I can report that she is getting married to a wonderful man, a man I know is familiar with the toddler. How can anyone marry anyone who has not met the toddler within? With excuses to the "inner child"..............I remain your scribbler.