While emptying the dishwasher yesterday I started crying. The time has come to carry up from the basement the Target tub of memories and create my daughter’s high school graduation scrapbook. All of the coffee filter umbrellas which remind us “April showers bring May flowers” are about to get arranged on a page with the felt lettered headline, The Ark Preschool. Endless pink ribbons from her first pointe shoes to the ones she had signed by A.B.T.’s Gillian Murphy are waiting for me, but I’m not ready. One daughter, one lifetime, clipped and glued together to be wrapped and handed over on her graduation day. Parenting takes physical, spiritual and emotional fortitude and saying good-bye is the hardest part. My running partner reminded me of this on Tuesday when I met her in the parking lot and she was crying about sending her son off to college and he is going to college down the street! It is never easy. We jogged down the Prairie Path reminding ourselves that it is such a blessing when they come home again to visit, both knowing that although this is true, it isn’t the same. We reminded ourselves that God wants it this way. We all grow up together and move through our stages of life in order to be ready to accept what he has for us in each one. Separation anxiety in adults is not attractive.So, I’ll keep planting seeds in my seed trays and wait for tiny things to grow, all the while reminding myself that the flower doing her homework in our kitchen is a beautiful gift which has to be shared with the world. Ouch! Life is hard and the Target tub is calling.