As my wife was heading out the gate, Merim ran up behind her and wrapped both arms around her.
It wasn’t quite a thank-you. It was closer to I love you — or maybe don’t go.
This was the same girl who used to hover at the doorway when we first met, too shy to do more than whisper hello.
Thank you, Merim. We love you too.
Fifth grade already. We’ve known her since first grade, and somewhere in between, she became this — noticeably, undeniably bigger. The most natural thing in the world, and it still catches you off guard every time.
What aches isn’t just the childhood going — unrepeatable as it is. It’s the golden window, those years when the mind is most open, most hungry, most ready to receive. That window doesn’t stay open long, and I feel it moving even as I stand here. I owe these children something I’m still racing to give.
We can’t do what Merim did. We can’t reach around time from behind and hold it in place, press our faces into its shoulder and will it to stay a little longer. The children need to grow — there are better seasons ahead of them, and those seasons require that these ones end.
So we let go, even as we hold on. We give what we can, while the window is still open. And we stand here in that tender, impossible in-between — arms half-raised, watching the door.