“It’s Rina’s last high school play,” I sobbed to my married daughter sitting next to me

MY baby is graduating from 12th grade.

How can a baby graduate from 12th grade? That’s what I want to know! My baby is also getting her driver’s license — another conundrum. How do I feel about it? Panicky, sad, devastated, like I desperately want to hold time back and say, “No, no, not her, too.” Do I really have to face that my daughter will be in seminary in Eretz Yisrael next year, away from her mamma? I saw all the rest of them up and fly the nest, but my baby? That doesn’t even make sense.

But nobody asked me, and the years have passed. Rina begs me at every turn to let her drive the car. “I’ll run errands for you,” she pleads, “pick up the clothes from the dry cleaners, do your grocery shopping. Don’t you want me to help you?”

“Of course I do darling, there’s a good girl, just pick up that spoon I dropped on the floor. You can help me peel the carrots for Yom Tov. I’ll even let you use a real peeler. How’s that?”