Today, my second daughter is graduating from high school. I’m so proud of her. What an amazing girl! She even took after her Dad with her love for softball (four year varsity) and drama (an original member of The RLT Players).

It’s been a joy watching her grow and mature these last few years, and now as she graduates and leaves Malaysia, she has a whole new world to conquer – without us.

That, of course, is the sad part. The “without us” part. But life is meant to be an endless cycle of change, some good, some bad, some inevitable, some unexpected.

A graduation is one of those inevitable ones when the shift of time will change things forever. It’s huge. As in mammoth.

Four years ago I said “goodbye” to daughter number one. This past month she graduated from college.

A year ago I walked daughter number one down the aisle at church and gave her away to a wonderful young man. A second “goodbye.”

And now I say “goodbye” to daughter two. It’s not a “goodbye” forever, of course. But it is a “goodbye” to normality. It’s a “goodbye” to routine. It’s a “goodbye” to the known and a welcome to the unknown.

But that’s life.

So today as I watch her walk across the rostrum and receive her diploma, I’ll be so, so proud and so, so sad at the same time. Tears will come, as they should.

But life will move on, as it should.

Embrace these moments for all they are worth, and, in fact, they are priceless.