Lady Ali is visiting today with her fiance. She’s been living away from home almost 5 years. The first few years though she lived with my good friend and her daughter, who happened to be Lady Ali’s best friend. She wanted to finish high school a year early and take college classes (dual enrollment). The best place for her to accomplish these goals was about 90 miles away. It was difficult to let my 16 year old daughter move away. But I knew that I’d see her almost every weekend and if I wanted to during the week too. Plus holding her back would only be selfish on my part.

I’m happy to say that she achieved her goals. And if the college would have prepared her correctly she would have had an Associates Degree when she graduated high school at the age of 17. She then went on to graduate from college this past December. She even had to take a semester off for medical reasons but she graduated early again. She also worked full time, paid off her own car and lived in an apartment. She went to school on a full scholarship.

She is now moving to Kansas to attend Graduate school and get her Masters Degree in Library Science. She’s engaged. She’s super smart, loving, caring and kind. She’s my daughter who is now a young woman. She’ll always be my first born who has amazed me with her talents, her love and her beauty. And I’ll always be the Mom who will be there for her for anything.

Today when she comes to say goodbye I’ll try to keep it together. I’ll think of how happy she is right now in this moment. I’ll remember how I felt when I moved from New York to Florida at the age of 22. And I’ll kiss her and hold her tight when I say “See you soon”. And I’ll be praying. When she’s gone I’ll cry the tears I won’t be able to keep inside any more.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 11:49 am and is filed under My Life & Times, My Zany Family, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.