Letting them go

The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb

Whatever he needs, he has or doesn't
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do. With a pencil and two
Hardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich and
grapes he is on his way, there is nothing
more we can do for him. Whatever is
stored in his heart, he can use, now.
Whatever he has laid up in his mind
he can call on. What he does not have
he can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as one
folds a flag at the end of a ceremony,
onto itself, and onto itself, until
only a triangle wedge remains.
Whatever his exuberant soul
can do for him, it is doing right now.
Whatever his arrogance can do
it is doing to him. Everything
that's been done to him, he will now do.
Everything that's been placed in him will
come out, now, the contents of a trunk
unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine light.

--Sharon Olds

This is how I feel today. There is a job that has been finished. I have prepared all three of my children for the world, and now it's time to watch them go. I can help them when they stumble, and show them the path when they lose thier way, but they have what they need.
I am filled with pride.