Megan

My baby girl went to high school today, for two days orientation, to prepare her for September. How does an 11 year old girl, who still loves to play with her bears, make the leap to play with the big kids now? She was awake at six, a mixture of angst and sheer excitement. She ate her breakfast, fussed about her hair and kissed her cat goodbye. Thank goodness she has her big brother to watch for her, and lots of friends all in the same boat, but never the less her little hand clinging to mine gave her away, if only to me. A kiss and then she was gone, swallowed up by the hundreds of children pouring into the hall. I hovered, walked away, and then went back. I stole a quick last glance through the window and caught sight of her laughing with some other girls. Perhaps she can exist with a foot in each camp for a little while longer. Half baby half big girl, but always my Megan. Hmmm who's the big baby now weeping into her coffee?

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.



C. Day-Lewis