Just heard from a friend that a mutual friend of ours is feeling kinda mixed within after her son's marriage solemnization. Had also attended another friend's daughter's wedding last week.....yeah, you've got it right - I am at that age where friends' issues are getting married!!

Before I am placed too high on the age pedestal, I should mention that I am also at that age when friends consult me about primary schools and kindergartens to send their children to.... aah....still not that far off!

Not to derail myself from the melancholy track of life's journey when one's children grow up and change their status from "single" (the zone where parents live in the comfort and perception that these children -be they 15 or 45- still belong to them) to "married".......

Does the marriage of your child somehow draws the vision that you have lost him/her? Can it not be envisaged that you have gained a son/daughter in this process? Or is it a time when you feel that part of your responsibility has been lifted and replaced by another? And could it also be another one of those "letting go" lessons in life to be acquired and endured by a parent, particularly the parent who has spent so much time and effort nurturing the child since birth, and more particularly for such a parent with an only child?

Hence, it is not totally unimaginable to understand the difficult struggle in such an instance for a single parent (through widowhood or otherwise), with an only child, feeling a trifle lonely and lost.

Whilst it is easy to tell another to look on the positive side and think of having an additional member in the family, it may well prove difficult to put to practice. I have yet to even appreciate or experience the very first "letting go" lesson which I kept mentally preparing myself...unless crying for the whole first week of sending my first-born to day care (to prepare me to return to the gruesome work world after spending one and a half years with her) counts!!

I read all theses articles about separation woes of the babies, but nothing prepared me for the parent's woes...AT ALL!!! The emptiness, the sadness, the guilt, the worries...... the feeling that others cannot possibly and are not able to care for my baby! Gosh!!! It will be a triple mission impossible for parents to find any other human in this world who meets the standards and expectations required to "look after" their children (whatever age they may be) the same way they did!

BUT....as life journeys on, the children have their own life journeys ahead...it is time to look back, reflect on all you have done to the best of your ability, have the good memories, and move on.........

and I wish my friend - and all other friends who are, may or will be going this path of their journey - all the strength, hope and peace, love and happiness within to move on and enjoy their lives.

peace from ahfun