Mary Hood Hart's column appears weekly in the Southern Cross.

If I had created a list of parenting goals when my children were small, among the top five would be the goal of keeping them safe. Indeed, there were some especially challenging days when I knew I had accomplished a lot, if, by bedtime, no one was hurt.
Despite having safety as one of my priorities, I knew even in the early years that I could not protect my children from every risk. I tried to focus on what I could do without concerning myself with dangers beyond my control. I also tried to weigh the risks to their safety against another danger – the harm to them if I became overly protective.
Every year my children grew older, the risks to their safety increased and my ability to protect them diminished. However, my children were not without protectors. Once they entered school, other adults’ influence on my children grew. Indeed, looking back on my children’s school years, I could name a litany of saints – from priests to professors, from teachers to counselors – whose love and concern helped protect my children and guide them in the way they should go.
Now I face an even greater challenge of letting go. As the mother of a soldier, I have discovered that the maternal instincts that seem as natural to me as breathing are being put to a unique test.
While unique, this test is not unique to me. It is a test that other mothers of soldiers, mothers of police officers, mothers of missionaries, a test that all mothers whose children are involved in any risky enterprise are faced with almost daily. How do we reconcile our natural instinct to protect our offspring with the dangers they choose, as adults, to face?
While prayers are a great source of comfort, mothers who have lost children to war or in the line of other dangerous duty or through sickness will attest that prayers for physical protection do not guarantee our children’s safety.
We take additional comfort in knowing that our children are living their lives to the fullest, with the confidence of their convictions, using their God-given talents in service to others. And we trust in God’s providence, the assurance that, no matter what, all will be well. Yet each day requires us to surrender a little more.
In response to this new experience of surrendering, I wrote a poem about my son, now learning to fly helicopters, and my experience of letting go. To close this column, I share it with you and dedicate it to all mothers of soldiers.

The war rages in Afghanistan
and I wait as you learn to fly Apache helicopters.

When you were small I watched
from the shore as you, your sisters and brother
swam in the sea.

I dared not read a book
but kept my eyes fixed
on your bobbing heads,
your shoulders punched
by the waves.

Caught in the current, without knowing it,
you would be pulled too far,
and I would rise and walk to the surf,
calling, waving my arms.

You were often the first to see me.
Alerting your siblings to follow,
you trudged through surf to the safer place
in front of me,
where I could see.

Last May, I was allowed on post
and along with other parents
and young wives with toddlers in tow
I sat on bleachers in the Alabama sun.

Helicopters broke into the sky, several at once,
like dolphins, moving in one direction.
I couldn’t see
which one was yours.

Then, at last, one landed,
the closest one,
and I watched the pilot—you—emerge.

Mary Hood Hart lives with her
family in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. She can be reached at mhhart@diosav.org.