My heart is tender yet greedy; she is sensitive and but grips tightly to what she desires. So strange to take captive what my heart admires as free. What an I doing? Why do I grip? I admire all that grows, and growth requires change. Pining a person or an event in a static position in my heart is just plain mean – and it flies in the face in what I believe. So why am I holding on so tightly? I have children. They are grown. They have their own lives and I love them for it. I am content to watch them grow. At this stage of their lives I no longer have a “vote”; their health and safety is their own concern. In conversation with them I can suggest (that is the first time) or I can nag (that counts as times two and on) about any single attribute in their lives. When I move from [requested] suggestion to nagging the conversation falters and the communication ceases. It is not my business how they construct their learning journey, is it not my business what challenges and obstacles they choose, but oh how I make it my own suffering. I wish this and I want that. I have to tell you letting go is much easier when I don’t know; but my heart yearns for the details of their lives so they don’t slip away and become strangers who once had something in common with me. I don’t want to live a life of remembrance and memory; always bringing up the old stories of games played, meals shared and comical situations that became the fabric of our past. These things are important but I want to increase stories with the tales of NOW. I have to be mindful, however, that the tales of today are not to be fodder for suggestions, corrections, opinions or worded worry. If I am going to be kept in the loop I have to listen – with my “mother-face” in neutral – and hear them out. My intention in my morning meditation is to be a better listener and I practice. I really do. I stay aware of my heart beat to calm it when I am concerned, anticipatory, or scared for someone else, I keep my shoulders down out of the ears of tension, I keep my hands flaccid in my lap and oh… I try so heard to keep the face in a pleasant and non-critical expression. I can respond when asked – but please, don’t telegraph worry or complaint with my eyebrows! Why can’t they just lie mellow along my brow? I miss my kids and want to hear about them and their lives. And I need to practice listening. I need to let them IN while I let them GO.