When Did She Become a Woman?

My baby girl is forty-one today, but she's still a baby to me.
I know she's a matriarch to others, but my child is what I see.
It was a surprise to hear from someone she's a middle-aged woman,
That surely we've outgrown mother/ daughter, and are now friends.

I always thought I could make that leap and see her as my peer,
But she has so many superior qualities that I hold most dear.
She became my best friend so many years and so many lives ago,
I have never been strong enough to be the friend to whom she'd go.

I am so grateful that she has found others to be her confidants;
To give our children freedom of choice is what a parent really wants.
But my soul and heart still cry whenever I know she is in great pain;
There are many times I wish I could shelter her with my womb again.

I am concerned how she will fare when her baby walks away;
She has given so much of herself that, for her wholeness, I pray.
Without her presence in my daily life, I was so severely bereft;
Perhaps she will hold it together better than I did when she left.

Maybe eighteen is no more the age at which we set our young free;
Maybe this is too young for them to be who they're meant to be.
Maybe we have more years of innocence with our dear children;
Time when they can be both our sheltered children and our friends.