Dandelion Whine

While at preschool on Wednesday, some teachers rushed over to Grace, panicked. Her back was to them, she was hunched over and it appeared she was gagging, choking or vomiting. When they arrived to see her from the front, she was holding a dandelion and was continuously blowing its petals away.
The teacher asked if she was okay. "Yeah, I'm just blowing my dandylion."
"Are you making wishes?"
"Yep."
"What are you wishing for?"
"For my mom to come back."
"You know what? Your wish is going to come true," my hero Barb said. "She's going to come back and get you, just not right now. Your mommy always comes back."
"I know - after lunch, after nap, after snack," a melancholy 3-year-old responded.
At 3 or 34, our wishes are the same.
I know my mommy always comes back. I'm so grateful I still have my mommy. I love her so much; she's one of my best friends.
I'm also so grateful that although I know she wanted to be by my side day and night, she still believed so much in what she taught me to trust me to be on my own.
I moved across the country to follow my dream, and now that I'm a mom, I know how much that killed her to give her blessing, but she did.
She loved me and she let me go, like the petals on a dandelion - into the wind, to do what God had willed me to do.
I hope Gracie and I are like that too, love our time together and let each other go when we need to, and that I won't have to wish on a dandelion for that to be true.