When our youngest was a year old, we left him with my parents for a week and hiked part of the Northville Lake Placid Trail. We left our kids in the care of their grandparents overnight on many occasions, but all for the same reason; for us to be more than just parents. Parenting was important to us, but so was being a wife, a husband, and friends. We knew we’d have each child in our care for about 22 years but our parenting plan didn’t include kicking them out, so we raised them to be caring, independent, responsible, hardworking adults. We knew parenting was going to be a temporary job so we had to use our time wisely and draw on patience, understanding, discipline, and setting examples to help us teach values they would draw on for the rest of their lives; all of these based on love. Over the last 4 of those 22 years, we gradually transitioned from parents to friends, wanting to share in their lives instead of acting like parents, no longer leading, but walking side by side. We didn’t want them to turn out just like us, we wanted them to be better; more.
A Widow's Walk 