I spent the past several days paroozing Northern Liberties off Spring garden St. looking for an apartment for my daughter Sara. It's painful to write this...in the moment, as we shuffled from apt to apt, one cute to one, a horror of smells and serpentine wired back yards, I was able to detach the reality of what it meant to be walking through these rooms... somewhat. An odd bird of a realtor took us around on Saturday, she smelled of swedish fish and poo and said the most peculiar things which kind of had us in stitches after the showings. By days end, we had found"the place" and it was charming! It has three stories filled with character and warmth, beautiful windows, incredible cobalt tiled floor in the bathroom with brick faced walls, wood floors, a stellar kitchen filled with stainless everything, intercom for safety, huge rooms and from the living room window, a street sign that read, Hope Street. As I stood looking at the sign, I felt God offer a warm arm around my shoulder for comfort, maybe for stability too. My daughter nudged up beside me, staring out at the sign as well. A moment had arrived for us to stand together and feel the sweet and the sorrow without words. She will have a special plant for that windowsill that I have already rooted from our now ten year old basil plant on my kitchen counter top. It will sit on that windowsill in her new place and as she looks out at the Hope Street sign, I"ll be with her and so will that silent but profound moment we shared. I'm glad that I don't know how to let her go, that I don't need to know how, because I don't, and that's just that. I know the pain will be brutal and the missing her here in our home, in an everyday kind of way will be an amputation at times, but I will try to move past it or breathe through the moments as they come and go.I think, as a mother thinks, I won't hear her say "good night, I love you" to her brother anymore as I climb into bed, I won't know she is safely sleeping in her bed upstairs, and I will miss her funny nightly banter as she bounces in from work and plops on my bed, unlaoding an arsenal of stories about her day. So my sweet, brilliant, beautiful, exotic, principled and funny girl, I love you and you'd better come home for a weekly dinner. We'll be here waiting for you. Love, always, all ways, mom
