Nearly 17 years ago she was a bundle of blonde hair and IV lines, laying in an incubator at Toronto's Sick Kid's Hospital, born a few weeks premature and quite ill.
Sitting over her, stroking her little back, I promised that I would protect this child. The natural instinct of a parent magnified by illness. A child too weak to cry.
Now, Ashleigh is almost 17…. a beautiful, healthy, hard-working and creative girl from whom I had to pry myself at Pearson in Toronto yesterday, as we put her on a flight to France.
She's there for three months, a participant in an exchange program run by the Canadian Educational Exchange Foundation (CEEF). Ash is in good hands and will be enjoying a whirlwind three months, staying with her exchange partner and her family in a small village about five hours southeast of Paris. She will be going to school, and there will also be side trips to Switzerland and Italy before we welcome her back May 3rd.
I'm so proud of her. She was a shy child until a few years ago. But recently she has blossomed, and when she put her name in to apply for the exchange program I was both surprised and amazed. Still am.
But boy, it's hard to let go. This is her first extended trip abroad without us and it's hard. But more 'letting-go' is coming; I know…marriage (if she so chooses) and career, wherever in the world she winds up.
Yesterday was the first step. And I can report she is safely in France now, and we recieved our first e:mail from her late today. It will be a grand adventure. I envy her.
A couple of things I thought about on the way back from Pearson in the car last night…
I'm glad we chose French Immersion for our kids.
And real men DO cry…