Before I started the Ro’s Words of Encouragement blog last November, I sent out my Weekend Words posts through e-mail to a group of friends, co-workers and clients. I still send those e-mails every Friday, but since starting the blog I also post the Weekend Words here. I am trying to go back through my older Weekend Words posts, the ones that were written before the blog existed, and share them with my blog readers. So although the below post is in the Weekend Words category, it is not this week’s official Weekend Words post. The below Weekend Words was originally published via e-mail on April 29, 2010:
Thank you all so much for the overwhelming response to “Graduation Time.” It appears that many of you can relate to my situation, and that of my daughter.
In a completely unexpected turn of events, Grace received a job offer to work with the same people she interned with last summer. Now I’m wondering if she’s ready to take on the “real world.” It’s all happening so fast; it seems like yesterday that she was an infant and I was holding her in my arms.
My mom told me a story once that has special meaning to me now that I’m going through it myself. She said that when we were at the airport and I was boarding a plane on my way to my freshman year of college at Virginia Tech, she knew (as did I) that things were changing forever between us. She said she kept thinking, as she watched the plane take flight, “You can’t take him. I’m not done with him yet!”
I guess as a parent there comes a time when we need to let go and let our children live their own lives, knowing that they will experience all that life has to offer – the peaks and valleys, the good times and the bad, the joys and the sorrow.
When I tried to think of advice that would be helpful to my daughter and other young men and women entering this phase of their lives I thought of the poem “Don’t Quit.”
Don’t Quit
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And when you want to smile, but you have a sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don’t quit.
“Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow-
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out-
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit-
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.
-Unknown