Becoming

I almost didn’t recognize my own kid. As I waited at the gate in the airport terminal (back when you could do such a thing without clearance from the Pentagon), I anticipated collecting the same daughter I had sent off two months before--still a bit baby-faced and with the amorphous shape that seems to come with going from child to young adult for many people. And then she showed up, but she could have walked right by me without a glimmer of recognition firing in my brain. I sent off a girl who was not yet comfortable in her own skin, who wouldn’t let me bring the correct size to the dressing room because she wasn’t willing to wear it, a fluffy little duckling, and I got back a willowy swan with chiseled cheekbones and legs for days. She towered over me, no longer a child, and looked stunning. Not that she wasn’t beautiful before, just that she changed and matured more in those few weeks than she ever will again. My middle daughter snuck up on me the same way. One day she was still a girl with full cheeks and rounded edges, and, seemingly a day later, showed up with a slim, gazelle-like silhouette that took me by surprise. They both had that summer--the one where you finally grow into yourself and become your idea of beautiful. Lucky girls. In Robert Kraus’ Leo the Late Bloomer, a little tiger finds his own timetable. I’m still waiting for mine.

http://www.amazon.com/Leo-Late-Bloomer-Robert-Kraus/dp/006443348X

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kraus