How To Watch Your Daughter Soar

She has wanted a cell phone since she could hold one in her hand. So yesterday when I gave her mine for the day, you can imagine her joy.

Her sister was sick. Well, sick enough to stay home from school and convince me that she needed a day to recover. It knocked our ride-the-city-bus-to-school-and-back routine out of whack.

I couldn’t just run her to school with the sick one in the back seat. I have no car. And what about after school? How would she get home?

My Mann did a u-ey on his way to work and came home so he could take her to school. Then my 10-year-old daughter and I discussed the options. How would she get home? She could ride the crowded bus full of all kinds of people. Like we do everyday. My girls and me together. Lots of kids do it without their parents. Even six-year-olds. But, well, being Americans in a foreign land full of people whose language we only sort of speak, we’re just not ready to join those ranks.

We could hope for the best and plan on the usual after school pick-up. Assuming the youngest would be fine by then. But at that point, I just wasn’t sure.

I guess I could walk home. She said it as if it were her own idea. I liked that. Something she refused to consider on days I don’t want a bus ride. But today was different. And somehow her walking the 2.1 kilometers home seemed less scary than switching buses in the central station and having her ride alone.

Really? I asked just to make sure the wax in my ears wasn’t teasing me. I assure you, it was not.

So I happily surrendered to the cell-phone battle for a school day’s time, and we made a plan. Call me as soon as you leave school. I knew she would. She’s a really good rule-follower when it means she gets to use the phone.

When she called me the first time, I could hear the smile in her voice. She was big, and I was helping her with it. A wing-spreading moment I was happy to assist. I could almost hear the growth plates of her heart as they stretched from little girl to prepubescent ‘tween. She filled the role well.

She called again to ask about stopping at the library down the street. More freedom I was willing to give. More maturity she was ready to attain.

You can bet I prayed her all the way home. And without a doubt I hugged her like crazy when she walked through that door. But it wasn’t for the fear of what might happen to my little girl. It was for the knowing Whose hand pulls her along and into the grown-up that she is becoming.

One day, I will send this little girl to womanhood. I will wave goodbye as she drives away in a car. I will help her move into a college dorm room. I will stand at the front of a sanctuary holding tissues as she changes her name to become one with a man I will then call my son. Someday my girl will have a life of her own. And yesterday was just a start. Because when that day comes, she will be ready.

And she’ll probably have a better cell phone than me.