If there is anything that every honest parent could agree about, it is that the entire process of parenting is messy. From the womb to the world, the mess is inevitable. It cannot be avoided. All that the midwife, doctor, nurse, and/or parent can do is to prepare for the fact that this will be a very messy process. Yet, despite the mess, the pain, and the difficulty, being present for the birth of a brand-new baby is one of the most beautiful experiences that life has to offer.
However, every experienced parent will also tell you that this will not be the end of the messiness. On the contrary, this is actually just the introduction course. Perhaps we could call it something like: “The rest of your life will be messy 101.” Indeed, at least the next 20 years of life will now be filled with messes.
We begin with dirty diapers, drool, leaky bottles and sippy cups, bibs smeared with baby food, cribs and car seats filled with crumbs, floors covered with smashed bananas and blueberries, bandages for boo-boos, and so many more lovely varieties of mess. And these are just the baby and toddler years!
All of these messes are just getting us prepared for the bigger messes yet to come. Broken hearts are much messier, and they are so much more difficult to handle. Embarrassing moments and situations, not getting picked for the team or the beauty pageant, getting picked on by the “cool” kids, not making great grades, and ultimately betrayal from so-called friends and “love” interests.
And then, there is the messiest mess of them all: Letting go. Here, after all of these years of changing diapers, kissing boo-boos, and mending broken hearts, we find that nothing we have experienced so far could prepare us for this final and most difficult mess. Yet, if we pay careful attention, we will see that letting go is not simply a mess … it is the natural ebb and flow of life.
Every fall, the trees teach us that just as each individual leaf is beginning to mature into its own unique color and expression of beauty, this is the very moment of letting go. And just as the tree has provided all that was necessary for the leaf to become what it was meant to be, so must we recognize that we have done our job. Like the leaves, our children are becoming the mature expression of all that they are meant to be, and so, we must let go.
Of course, this is not simple. It is, perhaps, the hardest thing a parent must do. Still, we must let go. Love lets go with selfless trust. A trust rooted in the process of cleaning up all the messes that have led us here. Now, we must trust that we have done our job, and we must trust our children (who are now adults) to do theirs. We must acknowledge that they will make messes … just like we did. And they will learn from their messes … just like we did. Perhaps they will have children of their own someday. And all that they have learned from their own messes will help them to deal with the messes that their children will make.
May we hold this trust with open hands and the utmost hope … the hope that they will have learned the same lesson that we have learned and are learning: That life is beautiful despite (or, perhaps, because of) the fact that it is … messy.
Adam Jeffrey is a family man: father of Savannah, Sierra, Madalynn, Aspen, and Aidan Jeffrey; husband of Kristie Jeffrey. When he is not changing diapers, helping with homework, mopping floors, washing dishes, and juggling many other family responsibilities, Adam is also an award-winning multi-instrumental musician, singer-songwriter, producer, and live-loop artist who has performed all over the world with various artists, bands, and symphony orchestras. In his current hometown of Memphis, he has had the honor of performing on several occasions with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. The Jeffreys also co-created Imagine Vegan Cafe in the heart of Cooper-Young in Midtown in 2011 (imaginevegancafe.com)