Today my firstborn is heading to Japan for 2 weeks, on a school trip. He will be living with a Japanese family in Tokyo and going to school there, fully immersed in the language and the culture.
He loves his Japanese and has never gotten anything lower than an A+... ever! .... in his favourite subject.... for the past 6 years. He has worked so hard, not just in Japanese, but in every subject. He sits up late every night, studying, 'assignment-ing', doing the extra optional everything that gets handed out. Grade 9 for goodness sake! He's last to bed, turns the lights out. He wants to do well. He wants to do Medicine. I had to give him this wonderful opportunity. Just. Had. To. To say thank you for working so hard, with such focus and positivity..... for appreciating the opportunities that come his way.
I have done the, 'do you know how lucky you are?', waffle, over and over... and the "I had to pay my own way through Uni for 5 years, working at that damn fruit shop checkout for 5 years! ... then work for 2 years in my new profession and then get overseas and work my guts out to do anything remotely as exciting as what you're getting to do at this age' lecture. He keeps saying thank you.....I hope he appreciates it all. You can't inspire or teach appreciation, can you? I would have died to have had this opportunity when I was his age.
So anyway, my heart is a bit fragile today. It's hard to let go, let him be free, let him grow up, let him out of my sight! It's a big busy city, Tokyo... with my beautiful boy in it .....without me to protect him.
Digging deep these next 2 weeks. Little one is intensely grieving already. 2 weeks is a long time.
How do we do this?
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