This little nugget of wisdom I did not find floating around on the internet or making the circle on Facebook. I heard it on television. Grey’s Anatomy. A scene in which Dr. Bailey confides to Dr. Webber about the budding independence of her young child.
Bailey: He let go of my hand. I took him to his first day of kindergarten, and I was, you know, ready for the tears and the good-bye, and how hard it was gonna be, and he just let go of my hand. He didn’t even look back. He walked in, saw a toy he liked, and didn’t look back… And I’m here, doing what a general surgery attending does, appys and choles. While everybody else is off conquering new things, I’m stuck. And I didn’t care. You know, I mean, this was my choice. I’m not even sure I noticed.
Richard: Until Tuck let go of your hand.
Bailey (voice breaking): ‘Til Tuck let go of my hand.
Richard: You know what happens when someone lets go of your hand?
Bailey: What?
Richard: You get it back. It’s a good thing. You know, interns let go, and… Tuck let go, and even Ben let go. And they’re all still there. They all still love you. But it means you get your hand back. It means you have time– Not to wash the dishes– To do something with, to get out there, to find diseases to cure, to take it to the next level. Hell, uh, it means invent the Bailey method. But you gotta get out there, do something. And don’t look back.
Some women struggle more than others when their children begin to need them less. This is an especially fitting lesson right now, in the month of June, when many of our babies are graduating from high school. Next year at this time, they won’t be the same people. This is exciting, but it’s also unsettling knowing there may be one less bed to make each morning, one less lunch to pack, one less baby to watch sleeping.
But you’re not losing a child…
you’re getting your hand back.
