Gianluca Has Started His Journey!

It's Wednesday night here in Seattle and I'm sitting at my school just having finished writing a paper on HIV/AIDS. As I was writing my paper I was aware that back in Italy Gianluca and his family have said their goodbyes in Rome, and he has begun the first stage of his journey. I'm sure he's sleeping now, as well as his parents. In his mother's mind she is probably worried about what this year holds for him. She is certainly sad that he has fledged from the nest, not to a university or his own apartment, but across the Atlantic Ocean and clear to the other side of the United States! This must be distressing for her and I feel her distress quite acutely as I realize that my own son will depart next Tuesday for his year in Norway. I wish I could give Gianluca's mother a warm hug right now and assure her that I will do my best to care for her son while he is with me. So I'm sending you a cyberhug Roberta, with the wish that both of us can be strong for our sons as they venture out into the world, to grow and shine. It's a brave thing for a mother to do, but it's also an act of grace. Our children are our hearts. Letting them go is NOT an easy thing to do. This takes me to one of my favorite poems:

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Safe travels Gianluca. We are looking forward to meeting you on Saturday.

Warm regards and much love to Roberta and Mauro. I will do my best.

Promise.