The Blessing

     Since my last post was on empty nesting, this might be a good time to share our family tradition of giving our children our blessing as they leave our home.  This is a hand written letter, a kind of  farewell address, the final words we want to leave them with.  The letter has three main parts, our observations on their character, our hopes for their future, and the incredible privilege it has been to share our home and lives with them.  Most of us know our own weaknesses and don't need many reminders, so we try to focus on areas that have shown improvement and on their strengths.  Our hope for their future is the same for each one, that they will love and serve God.  That is what we are made for and where we find fulfillment.  The privilege of raising them is something you don't fully realize until you let them leave.  You will see them again, but it will never be the same.  Their time as a child in your home has ended and you leave the active phase of parenting to see if the values you tried to plant in their lives took root.  Have they grasped the spiritual baton you tried to pass them?  Will your children become your friends?  Do you trust God to guide them  in their adult years as you so imperfectly tried to do in their childhood?
     We wrote the first blessing in a Bozeman hotel room as our daughter spent her first night in her college apartment.  It is a good thing we had written it out because I was crying too hard to say a word as we parted the next day.  We wrote Will's blessing in similar circumstances in another tear soaked hotel in Seattle.  Because they were written in hotels, I have no copies of those letters and I regret that.  Our youngest son's blessing was written here at home and recently so I have a copy of that tucked away with my important papers.
     The value of letters is that they can always reread them, if they choose to save them.  I hope they do because they are probably the only place where their dad has poured out his heart to his children so clearly. In the case of our youngest son, who moved out but stayed in town, there was a tangible difference in the way he related to his dad after receiving the blessing.  He seemed more at ease. Until Trace read those words I don't think he knew how his father really felt about him.
     I also gave blessing letters to most of the "spare sons" who lived for a time in our home, a story I will share at another time.  We have few formal rites of passage in this country, grown children often leave home and return many times, and we would be fine with that; but this is our official recognition of their adulthood, a bon voyage less painful than breaking a bottle over their nose and a sneaky way to get in the final word.  And the word is--thanks.