It’s not the best photo–but I love the look on our son’s face. The weather here has been glorious this week. And we spent most of last evening outside–hanging out on the porch with our telescope. The sky was perfection: the moon, Jupiter, and Mars all clearly visible.
It’s these things I hold on to. I love these two people, so much.
At this very moment, our 17 year old is sitting his Physics final. This is the end of his second term at college and his spring break begins just as soon as he’s finished: having completed his Calculus final this morning.
Let me tell you, typing that paragraph is weird. We’ve been at this college thing now for six months and it still feels weird. And not just for me.
I took at a break from work yesterday and scooped up my college student for a quick trip to Starbucks. He loves going in the middle of his day, between classes: it’s a mental break. And it’s a chance for us to touch bases in a non-written form. (we’re on Instant Message a lot throughout the day.) At one point in the conversation he said, “I’m almost out the door. When I leave there’s no coming back to my childhood.”
He gets a little weepy at the idea, but then, so do I. It’s weird for all of us. I assured him, despite his skepticism now, that there would come a day soon where it wouldn’t be weird at all. Where he would be excited to visit and just as excited to return to his own life at school. “You can always come home, Geo– but trust me, something changes when you go off to college. You stop wanting to be at home all the time.”
It’s not just about his absence. I think we’re both feeling out how our relationship is changing. He isn’t ready and I’m not ready to stop being his “smother”… but, I’m letting go of the oversight more and more each day. And more and more, he’s solving things for himself and letting me in on the solution.
I think we’re on target. It feels like we’re exactly where we should be. We’re just a little sad that we’re at this point. And it’s my job, my last act of intense mothering, to point the way to a new relationship with my son, who is almost an adult.
He is not convinced that this moment will come. But we all know better, right? Besides, this is healthy. It’s a natural part of growing up. We want our children to leave the nest. Maybe not to go so far away; but we know they must leave, if they’re ever to truly live a life that belongs to them.
That being said, it’s utterly mind blowing for me to consider a life where he visits. It’s not only coming, it’s going to be OK. I recognize that it will feel weird at first to have him gone. And then we will grow used to the idea of our child living his own life. Just as we’ve grown used to seeing him less and less as he has moved into this new role of being a college student. I’m excited to see where his future takes him, even as I brush away tears at the thought.
I’m also beginning to recognize that the grief will eventually subside. That IZ and I, like our son, are beginning a new chapter of lives together. And, dare I admit, I’m looking forward to being alone, with my husband! We had a life together that predates this child of ours: and we’ll have a life together once he’s out of the house.
There is a new equilibrium coming. A space and time where our adult child is thriving in a world of his own. It’s just a matter of getting there.
All these posts with no picture. Tsk tsk.
Hands down, the highlight of my week (which has been very good! Lots of sunshine, lots of walks with IZ on the river front) was holding our neighbor’s two week old baby.
We’d dropped by, because we saw the proud new daddy working the yard and we wanted to give them a tree. (An aside, our neighbors have built a tiny farm in their back-yard. And I bought a pear tree 18 months ago on a whim *read:SALE* and then never found a place for it. Someone needed to put that tree in the ground and I was hoping it would be them!)
Baby G was born on the 25th of February, and we’d been keeping our distance because new parents deserve to not be inundated. But the whole street is excited. We keep asking each other, “Have you seen him, yet?” “No, no, giving them space.”
There have been other babies born in the neighborhood, but he’s our first on the block. With all of us either retired or with kids with one foot out the door: we needed a baby influx! And with all of us retired or with kids with one foot out the door, this baby is going to be surrounded with love and a bevy of extra “aunts and uncles”.
Anyhow, back to my story… we’re talking to Dad in the yard when Mom appears at the door, “Do you want to come inside and meet the baby?”
Um? Don’t have to ask me twice. I mentally told myself, “Stay calm, walk, walk.” I left IZ in the dust. See ya!
Let me tell you people. He’s gorgeous. I mean it. I know, I know, all babies are. But I’m completely unbiased, as this little guy is not related to me in any fashion. GORGEOUS. He’s just hanging out in his bassinet making all these adorable 2 week old baby faces. IZ and I stood over him, talking with Mom, getting the scoop on who this new little person is. And then she asked, “Do you want to hold him?”
Seriously?
Here’s the thing friends, I never ask. NEVER. I had one of those babies who could be passed around to strangers with ease. But when he got home, he would wail for hours. It overwhelmed his little senses and all the emotion he was bottling up from being passed around would just explode out of him. Our pediatrician’s recommendation was to limit the passing. She said, “You hold him, let other people talk to him while you do.”
So, from experience, I don’t ask to hold babies. Because there is nothing worse than being asked and then having to say “No.” It’s horrible; and while you’d think people would handle the “no” with grace: some don’t. Some feel entitled and tell you so. Some yell at you and make a scene and call you names. For me, it was my first lesson in parenting: you put your kid’s needs in front of other people’s desires. But that doesn’t mean it was an enjoyable lesson!
I washed up and held this new treasure. IZ stood behind me and we just cuddled with this precious new life. I felt my breath catch: and I realized I hadn’t held a baby this tiny since Geo. For a few moments we could see the future.
When I handed him back to his mother I said thank you. She probably has no idea what a gift it was to hold her newly born son. But it was: one I am treasuring and holding and keeping safe. Until the next time she asks.
Ok, so there should probably be a photo with this post. But, the boy has a social life: so he’s not around today to snap a photo. Maybe later this week?
Geo came home from Christmas shopping last night, “Oh, mom, you put my birthday tree up!” And then he got kinda quiet and said, “I’m sad to be turning 17.”
When you push him on that he’ll tell you — with these heartbreaking tears welling up in his eyes — that he feels his childhood slipping away.
“Oh, don’t cry!” I’m a sympathetic crier and I can feel the waterworks brewing up on their own. Lately, tears are always so close to the surface. But his face scrunches up in that unmistakable twist and we’re both wiping our eyes. It’s misery, this growing up stuff.
He’s worried his relationship with his parents will change. We assure him that it will, for the better. There will be friends and women and a family of his own. Grandbabies, even! In time, his father interjects!
“You’ll get a second chance at childhood, we promise! It’s better the second time.”
“When?”
“When you have children. And then another chance with grandchildren!– Besides,” we tell him, “we’ll happily boss you about for as long as you’ll let us!”
Right now his response is always, “forever.”
That’s a fib he’s telling himself that I’m not correcting at the moment, but I know better. Because he’s never liked anyone bossing him about. Though, he’s romanticized this concept of childhood. For a child who has done nothing but dream of going to college, of being his own man, spending years telling me, “when I’m an adult”. . . well, he has a huge case of cold feet at the moment.
I’m not sure what it is, if this is the result of being an only child? It’s true, he doesn’t have any pesky younger siblings behind him to gently annoy him into leaving the house. He’s in no rush to drive, no rush to move out, dragging his feet and telling me everything.
Or if he senses my own grief and nostalgia? This lovely, brainy boy who also feels too deeply and can read his mother from a mile away — is he reticent because he’s picking up on my heartache?
I’m trying, friends, to gently hold on to the joy and excitement and the loveliness that is 17. But when he makes that face and falls into my arms, he’s crying for both of us and I can’t help but cry a bit too.
It is going to change. It’s already changing. That’s how it’s supposed to be. All those sleepless nights of toddlerhood give way to sleepless nights of mothering a teenager. The worries are different, but just as poingnant. Will he ever talk or will he ever walk gives way to where will his feet take him? How far away from home will a new love carry him?
The gradual goodbye requires being present to the pain and living in the moment in spite of it. So, we are just a bit weepy this birthday. The whole lot of us. Remembering who he once was, dreaming about who he is becoming. Promising, that no matter what changes come, we will remain this knotted bonded family. And we are reminding him that, yes, we’ll continue to boss him about forever — just as long as he’ll stand for it. And, not minute more.
So cute, right? I thought so.
I do not want another baby. I’m cruising toward 44 (that number seems like magic!) and the next chapter of our life story is keenly on my mind. Our son is nearly out the door and I’m thinking about what comes next for me. Because despite the writing and the day job and all the creating on Mireio, my calling for the past 17 years has been “Mom.”
And I’d like to think that I’ve been good at being a mom.
That isn’t going to stop, but it’s evolving. My role in his life is changing: I’m now a sounding board on social situations and an in-house college advisor. But, he’s also starting to consider his next chapter (His mother has odds on the Mathematics department FTW) and he needs me less. IZ and I know, it’s just a matter of time. And as we walk closer to the edge of an empty nest, the old wounds find their way to the surface.
Not in the claustrophobic way they once suffocated my day. I no longer yearn or dream or pine. I’m long past being angry about our fertility issues. Instead, our conversations drift to, “I wonder what it would have been like. . . ” And providing cautionary tales to my Youth Group on loving your sibling, because not everyone gets a sibling.
But if someone handed me a child tomorrow, I would give up sleep and food and sanity to do it all over again. Because I will forever mourn the loss of what could have been. What was rightfully my dream.
Unlike people who choose “Oh, no, we only want two, three, four…” I didn’t make that choice. My body did. And while it is a bitter truth, there is also the grace of the reverse: it is a miracle I ever carried any child to term. That I survived the process is also the result of prayer.
But I am human. And I am greedy. And I wanted desperately to defy my odds and I tried and tired and tried, until the untold losses were just too much to bear.
Somewhere in the process of letting go, I placed my hopes and dreams on becoming an auntie. I didn’t do it consciously… it just happened. A way of making myself feel a little bit better about the loss of a dream. But it is too much of a burden to put on the shoulders of one baby nephew. And as it turned out, he wasn’t to be mine either. So, the losses are greater than anticipated.
This is life. We cannot always dodge the trauma. Nor can we expect others to understand. Sometimes, we must mourn our losses. And then pick ourselves up and move forward. Not on. Never on. Just forward.
So, I coo over babies I meet, I dote on other people’s children, I whisper into the ear of my own child, “No pressure, but 4 grandbabies would be nice.” I make promises to myself and Geo about who I will be as a grandmother. And I recite the names that were not: Henri, Francois, Jean-Phillippe. (Henry, Frank, and Jack to join our Geroges) Remember, remember, remember.
Somewhere in a parallel universe I am a mother surrounded by all of her children: no losses in sight. I’m probably sleep deprived and harried and not nearly as organized as I would imagine.
In this universe, I am gently holding my memories of what could have been.
