Letting Go

The Rev. Gayanne Frater

13 November 2014

Letting Go

Letting go,
hands open,
a gentle push
and a wicker basket
carrying treasured cargo
floats down the Nile.
A mother’s courage writ large.
Nearby,
the young sentinel stands
watching,
waiting,
praying,
trusting
in the unknowable.
Mother and daughter
let go of
beloved son and brother
for the sake of life,
in the name of hope.
Another woman,
a stranger,
different in faith,
colour,
skin,
ethnicity and status,
different in every way possible,
shares Love’s heart.
Stoops down to receive the wicker basket,
the man-child within becomes her own.
Mothers and daughters,
letting go of our heart’s treasures –
our children,
our ways of being
knowing,
thinking,
dreaming,
becoming,
hoping,
trusting that in our letting go,
even as our hearts break,
life will continue,
differently,
unexpectedly.
God, give us strength
and courage
to let go,
to open our hands
for the sake of life,
in the name of hope.

©Gayanne Frater

First published in the Women’s Study Centre Newsletter Vol. 4, no. 9 2014

Image ‘Moses in the arms of his Mother’ Simeon Solomon