Reality check

I know my son has grown up. I have been aware of that for a long long time. I knew it the day we left him in Kansas and moved to ABQ. I knew it the day he started talking about joining the military and there was nothing I could do. He didn't enlist for medical reasons. I knew it the day he told me he thought he had met THE ONE.

This weekend I had the biggest reality check yet. This is the first holiday in a long time that Phil has not been with us. If for some reason he was not with us he was with Mike's family.

This year was different. He was with THE ONE's family. He went in on Thanksgiving morning, spent the night. Yesterday, the helped Betsy's brother move then he and Betsy spent the afternoon on the plaza, ice skating and watched the Crown Center tree lighting. They woke up this morning and went to Topeka to spend the day with Mike's family. Then back to KC to spend the night. Tomorrow, they get up early and go get a tree and he will for the first time help another family kick off the holiday season.

It hit me while we will always be family I have to share him now. There are 2 families in his life now. I don't mean it in a bad way, it just hit me that once again he is entering a new period of his life. Change is the only constant in this world and with kids that change seems to happen more and more as they grow up.