In the morning, my niece will leave for Tennessee to begin “the rest of her life.”
She is nearly 20 and in the next 48 hours she will move into her first apartment and meet her roommates. Then she will look for a job there to pay for said apartment and begin classes at her college of choice, Nossi College of Art.
I was there the night she was born. I was 14 years old and she was like a baby sister to me because she was raised down the street. She has always been fortunate enough to be “just like me;)” My bond with this child is a non-wavering bond that you will only find within family. She is amazingly beautiful and wonderfully talented, but beyond these things, she is good. She has a good heart and a good soul and I am filled with joy and anticipation to see what changes will happen for her in the next year. I know she will grow up a lot while away from home. This is what happens when children grow up and leave home, they become who they were always meant to be. They develop into the people their parents raised them to be and always hoped they’d become. Sure many mistakes will be made, and these mistakes will cause her to learn life lessons. But, that is life and we must all fall before we can stand up. We must fall just to learn who we are and to teach us that we are strong enough to stand after failure. I would like to think she will have an easy time, but I know transition is hard. So hard that I can remember the growing pains I experienced when I first left for college. So I can only hope that she will come through this next year with one thing all young people need…a sense of self. And even more, the knowledge that she is strong enough to do anything and everything she wants to do. For my dearest, most beloved niece, I wish for her, many things: love, joy, adventure, fun, peace, excitement, strength, luck, friendship, courage, and mostly, I wish for her knowledge. The simple and perfect knowledge that she is loved and supported by many and that she is a child of God who will guide, guard and protect her, and that He alone will carry her through everything the next year brings.
God Speed Mal – I Love You!
