Life CAN be deliciously sweet.

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Twenty years ago this week, I was painting huge red and blue elephants on flimsy closet doors.

Tanissa was about to arrive and I was fully immersed in the sweet process of getting Her Room ready. We  lived in a cheery single wide trailer in the middle of the woods and while she never spent as much as a nap in that little room, making my baby girl a physical space in the world gave me a deep sense of joy.

I love bedrooms. I believe in bedrooms. I believe that the way a bedroom looks, feels and smells affects us deeply. I believe that as we enter, it talks to us and that what is says matters.

A few years later, my baby girl had grown into a little girl who wore frilly dresses and climbed trees. And she wanted a canopy bed. Pink, of course. At that time, I again spent a couple nights painting Her Room. White and yellow daisies bloomed one by one over the matching pale pink walls, inviting girly dreams and conversations.

Time passed and we moved a lot. Her Room changed from home to home and while she caught my love of bedrooms, she no longer needed me to help her with them.

Bob Marley, posters of boys looking buff, tons and tons of photos of her and other people met in other countries, letters from friends … it all said: Tanissa.

And the smell. A blend of body lotion and peach candies.

And the mess. She would spend an afternoon lining up bottles and picture frames, loving the way her room felt when it was “all clean.” Three days later, you couldn’t see the floor any more.

So, yes. Her Room.

When she left for Brazil, a couple of years ago, I would sometimes go sit on her bed and  feel her. For the first few months, the room still smelled of her and in there, I could catch a glimpse of her essence. When she got homesick, she would ask me to Skype and walk over to Her Room and move the laptop around so she could see it. So she could grab the string that tied her to home.

Tomorrow, she leaves again.

She leaves for a long time and this time, there is no talk of “please keep my room for me.” This time, there is talk amongst her brothers of taking over Her Room and ending their years of room sharing. There is talk, after 20 years, of no longer having Her Room in my home. In my life.

And it hurts.

I have gotten used to her coming and going. I have gotten used to dropping her off at the airport and sleeping with my phone nearby in case she called in the middle of the night (she never has but hey, you never know). I have gotten used to a different way of being her mom. But I didn’t realize until last night how much all of this was made easier by being able to walk by Her Room, every day.

But soon, smells of overly sweet body lotion are going to turn into this unmistakable boy room smell. Which is also so very lovely (most of the time). The mess on the floor is going to be less bright and a little heavier in texture. The music is going to be louder. Little by little, the flavor of her presence is going to fade, with no decoy for me to hang onto.

This is good. This is right. This is life doing its orderly thing.

But today, I want to close my eyes and pretend that I am painting elephants, with a belly as big and as round as them. I want to pretend that I have twenty more years of Her Room ahead of me.

And tomorrow,  I will drive her to the airport and I will be mostly filled with the joy of what she is about to create, mostly filled with the joy of knowing that she too is about to give birth to a new life. A life of her own.

To all of us who are learning to let go, who are feeling our hearts swell from love and from being so vulnerable, I send a long and warm hug. This isn’t easy.

Whatever form the letting go is taking, whether we are letting go of a child, of a parent or of a dream, it isn’t easy.

So, go ahead and feel it. Feel all of its pain and sadness and realness and humanness. You don’t even have to be graceful about it. Because, it just isn’t easy.

And little by little, the sharpness will ease, it always does. And the new gifts will show up, they always do.

And when that happens, there will be more elephants and daisies for us to paint.

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