My son has decided to leave home and is planning to share a house with a couple of friends. He leaves on Friday. This poem by C Day Lewis is rather apt.
Walking Away
It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.
I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.
6 comments:
That's a beautiful poem, I've never heard that one before.
When my eldest was a baby someone told me that as a parent your job is to make sure that eventually your child can manage without you, and if they can be independent it means you've done your job well. It seems too sad! Although I still need mine and I left home 10 years ago so I suppose there is hope!
I hope you'll be alright when your son moves out, he will probably be on the phone all the time asking you things!
Hugs, Mel xxx
Will there be a washing machine in his new pad! Happy Mother's Day Ruth. x
Lovely poem
It's a very bitter sweet time when our fledglings find their wings
We are full of a mixture of admiration and anxiety as they find their independance
Your son has a lovely mum
you'll never be far in his affections
I wish you both well in this transition
xx
Warm thoughts
sumea
Thank You!
Hope you to had a wonderful Mother`s Day!
Debbie Moss
Aaah so beautiful.
Hope you had a lovely Mothers Day & wishing your son lots of luck making his way in the world on his own.
Love
Alison
x
Lovely poem, Ruth. It's 9 years since Hannah left home but she was quite independent long before she left, so the transition was quite smooth. Hope yours will be!
Napisan used to be available in some Tesco stores, but I always order 6 at a time from our local chemist. They're linked to Boots I believe, but don't hold it in stock. They're happy to order it for me though. Worth a try with yours.
Sue x
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