The First Goodbye

His voice barked out through the phone, "Hello, this is Recruit Wolfinbarger. I have arrived safely at MCRD, San Diego. The next time I will contact you will be by postal mail so expect a letter in two to three weeks. I love you. Good bye."

I am not the first mother of a Marine to say goodbye to her son, nor will I be the last. As I process this next chapter in my son's journey, I have cause to reflect on my own. It is only human to look back and wonder who I would be today had I made different choices in my youth. I have yet to encounter the person that said, "I did everything I planned to do and my life turned out exactly as I had hoped." I'm sure such people exist, but our paths have not yet crossed. I now consider the extravagance of my youth will only be balanced by the wisdom gleaned with age. Meaning, I will forever be in debt to my expenditure of foolishness!

I will not bore you with all of the stupid mistakes I made chasing after the wrong things. I'm certain, dear reader, that you have enough of your own. If not, please feel free to stop reading now. You have officially arrived and have nothing left to learn. What I do know about myself is that by some miracle of divine intervention, at 22 years of age I was given a 6 pound baby boy who—in my humble opinion—had the most perfect face this first time mother had ever encountered. Have I resorted to sentimentality? Absolutely. My baby just left home to be a solider.

This morning I rolled out my yoga mat and began—with intense rigor I might add—my strength training regimen, all the while thinking about my son. I began with a series of crunches, followed by arm and leg lifts that target specific areas. Finally I came to the most dreadful part of my workout, the dreaded planks. Every time I "plank" I fuss internally. They are just really tough. They push me mentally and physically and don't produce very visible results. Still, they are probably one of the most important exercises I do and I used to dare my eldest son to do them with me. This time, he wasn't there to show me how I was doing it wrong. You see, he was already training with the Marines and their standard of excellence is far beyond my own.

Still, I pushed myself. I figured if my son can endure the rigors of boot camp, the least I can do is a good sympathy workout. Besides, I'm used to pushing my boundaries. Early in my journey to better health I encountered some very big hills both physically and metaphorically. Lifting each foot and pushing up actual hills was extremely challenging. With every footfall I wanted to quit. I would scream at myself, "How did you let it get this bad? You'll never make it! Losing weight is impossible!" Then I would pray for God to help me and counter my perceived inability with, "I think I can, I think I can!" Just like the little engine that could. After repeating that mantra and praying like crazy, I learned that mental toughness is just as important as physical toughness. Mental toughness pushes past pain, past despair and into the territory of resolve. Resolve says "even though I feel like I can't do this, I will try." Resolve conquers challenging mental hills much the same way a fly swatter kills vermin; one at a time.

I was 36 years old before I learned this lesson. As far as I'm concerned, that is far too late in life. In my youth I adopted the attitude that the world revolved around me. My reckless whims took president and I applied no strategy other than, "If it feels good, do it." I gorged myself with worthless ideas, nurtured fleeting emotions, and gave little thought to the way my actions affected others. Only through intense pain, brought on by the disappointments in life, did I begin to change my thoughts and behavior. Pain sharpened me. It taught me to survive and trust God, even when I was very angry with him. Now, when I read the scriptures, "For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives,” and "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:6, 11) I now understand hardship is meant to drive us to Christ. He means to teach me that all I really need is Him, even when it is a lesson I don't want to learn.

"Why were you thinking about all of this while you were doing planks?" you ask.

In many ways I feel that I failed my son by not teaching him discipline earlier in life. He spent the most time with me in my pre-healthy state. He was the beneficiary of countless cookies, cakes and tragic emotional outbursts. The parenting regrets stack up like a brick wall between he and I. And even though I bloodied my fingers trying to tear it down, it was too solidly built. In fact, I felt as if I had completely failed him. So you can imagine my shock when he approached me and said, "Mom, I want to serve my country by joining the Marines."

Say what? Where did that come from?

My son, who previously refused personal discipline at every turn, has chosen an encounter with the crucible of discipline in its rawest configuration. He will face himself and make decisions about the man he will become. As I sit here typing this all I can think is how thankful I am that he is clearly as stubborn and hard-headed as I am. That's the only way he'll make it through. Still I asked him before he left, "Are you afraid?" He had a very simple answer, "No." Age and experience tells me that answer may change in the next few weeks, but there is nothing I can do for him now. For that reason and many others, I have no other option but to fall on my knees and pray.

Over the years my children have frequently expressed to me their frustration about my healthy lifestyle, my eldest is not the least of these. They wished to eat all the things we ate before and felt quite deprived when I began using honey instead of sugar, whole wheat instead of white flour, and--gasp--brown rice! They're argument was fairly rudimentary, but wholly naive, "Mom, we're not fat like you!" Ah, the blissful ignorance of childhood. It denies any sense of culpability. Still, after my son's recent decision to serve his country, I can't help but think maybe I'm doing something right.

Yesterday I said goodbye to my boy as he stood at the edge of our nest. His take off was a little rocky. After all, leaving home for the first time is just as scary as it is exciting. He stood in a room full of other chicks, each with his or her hand raised as they pledged to honor and serve this great nation. I, for my part, stood with all the other parents; my camera in hand and my heart thumping in my chest. This time there were no goofy faces though. No bunny ears. No refusal to cooperate for pictures. There was simply my son and the course laid out before him. He has no doubts. His path is crystal clear. I held my breath as he spread his wings and jumped. For one terrifying moment I began to worry. A thousand things ran through my head, none of which I will mention here. "My baby bird has left the nest!" I thought with trembling lips and tears close at hand. But then my face lit wide with a smile. "Look!" I wanted to shout. "Did you see that? He can fly!"