You’ve Got A Friend
“On the one hand, it’s exactly what you hoped would happen…they grow up and they leave. On the other hand, there’s the definitive end to a period of your life that is not coming back.” –Kelly Corrigan, Getting Real About the Empty Nest
Mother’s Day. How hard could it be, I thought, to write about being a mother? I have, after all, been one for more than 40 years. Yet reflecting on my personal experience of mothering, I realized anew how complex and layered the subject can be.
Considering all the courage and fortitude that motherhood can entail, I feel like a lightweight. I never experienced, for example, the challenges of being a single mother. Or mothering a child through serious illness or injury. Even my cancer diagnosis came long after my children had “grown and flown,” as the saying goes. So I never had to worry about how I would care for them while undergoing treatment—or whether I would live to see them grow up. At age 85, my own mother is alive and well after her own cancer diagnosis two years ago. So celebrating Mother’s Day while missing one’s own mother, or perhaps grieving a beloved child who has passed, are things I know about only second-hand. As an old Haitian proverb says, “The rocks in the water don’t know how the rocks in the sun feel.”
Be that as it may, a difficult postpartum followed my son’s unexpected cesarean birth three weeks before his due date, and his first year exhausted me in ways I never knew were possible. Also, tempers could be short and the days long while raising my children. As a one-income household for many years, squeezing a dollar until it screamed once meant selling a coffee table to buy groceries. And mothering teens? Meaningful as much of that was, once was enough, thank you!
Overall, however, I enjoyed a level of support from my family, friends, and community that made mothering easier. With their help, I survived the ups and downs, sharp curves, and white-knuckled grip on the safety bar that the roller coaster ride called parenting sometimes entails. Even so, I wasn’t prepared for stepping off that roller coaster only to see the cars moving forward again, my children still seated and eagerly focused on more trips around the track without me. Indeed, they did not even seem to notice I was no longer on the ride.
Fortunately, many smaller leave takings took place throughout the course of raising my children—from starting school to sending them off on an airplane to visit their grandmother in Pittsburgh. However, the Big One came, as such transitions often do, when first Mike, then Melissa, left for college. While both were just an hour away, their departures officially moved our family to a new life chapter. Having given birth to Mike at age 21, I looked forward to giving some neglected and less familiar parts of me some much-needed time and attention.
For example, after years of feeling torn between home and work, I finally felt free to “lean-in” to a career in fundraising. I also read more, exercised more, travelled a lot, and relished the independence that often comes with an empty nest. This lasted just long enough to justify the time and money spent earning first a bachelor’s then a master’s degree before the kids finished high school. At some point, however, I realized I was a homebody and homemaker at heart. This led me to explore other ways to derive the sense of purpose and satisfaction that mothering once provided. So, I learned to quilt, took piano lessons, and started a blog. Lately, more of my energy is devoted to my parents, from whom I continue to learn much about living and loving well after age 80.
Truth be told, my daughter Melissa had been trying to get rid of me for a while. She was four years old when she asked if she could walk to preschool by herself. Logistically, she was perfectly capable of doing this as the park district program was practically in our back yard. Even so, there was no way I was going to let her walk there alone. “Okay, then,” she said when I made this clear. “Walk way behind me so it looks like I am walking by myself.”
Amused, I complied. Upon arriving at class, she pointed to a large, white pillar, which I understood I was to hide behind to continue the charade. Again, I complied, more reluctantly now, and feeling ridiculous. So, when another mom, looking around, asked, “Melissa, are you here alone?” I casually moved out from behind the pillar to ensure that everyone within earshot knew she was not alone. Exasperated, Melissa kept her back to me and walked proudly into class, never once looking back to wave goodbye.
Melissa’s older brother, Mike, as often happens in families, was a different child—quieter than his sister, and more sensitive. I recall the day he sat solemnly at the kitchen table, his sweet face filled with concern. “What’s the matter, bud? I asked.
“I’m worried that I won’t be ready to go to high school,” he answered. Given that he was in fourth grade at the time, he caught me off guard.
“Well,” I explained, “remember how everything you learned in kindergarten got you ready for first grade? And how all you learned in first grade got you ready for second grade?”
Mike brightened. “And second grade got me ready for third grade, and third grade got me ready for fourth grade!”
“You got it,” I replied. “And that will keep happening until you go to high school. So, when the time comes, you’ll be ready, I promise.” Relieved, he leapt from the chair, gave me a hug, and ran outside to play.
Millions of Mom-moments later, they were gone. Not really gone, of course, but gone in the sense that their daily lives no longer included their parents. Then, suddenly it seemed, they were graduating, then working full-time. Even so, they were never too far away, either physically or emotionally. Soon Mike met Kim and Melissa met Paul. Big, beautiful weddings took place, homes were bought, then one, two, three, and eventually four beautiful grandchildren appeared on the scene.
I feel supremely blessed by all of it. They all live nearby, so my husband, Nick, and I see them often. Between visits, we talk, email, text. But parent is no longer our primary role in the lives of our children. Nor should it be. However, amidst the comings and goings of their late teens and early twenties, I can still recall the exact moment in the lives of each of my children when the world claimed them in a new way forever.
The younger of the two, Melissa, went first. That independent four-year-old who wanted to walk alone to preschool? She continued to practice escaping her mother’s watchful eye for years to come. At age seven, she insisted that I sit several rows behind her and her friends at the movie theater. At 16, she asked if she could accompany her boyfriend, Matt, and his mother to the East Coast, where Matt’s family would celebrate Christmas. I hated the idea, and so did Nick. However, our calculation that being away from her own family at Christmastime, grown up as it made her feel, would ultimately ensure she never did it again. Good call…that’s exactly what happened.
So, I should not have been surprised when following her freshman year at college, Melissa announced she was getting an apartment with a friend with no plans to come home again ever, not to live anyway. She had a secure, well-paying part-time job and would be ramping up the hours all summer to pay the rent. True to her word, apart from a few weeks after college graduation, Melissa never did live at home again.Those weeks, however, were some of the most delightful days my husband and I had ever spent with our daughter. We will treasure them forever, and hope she will as well.
Mike’s big moment of leaving the nest came later—for me if not for him. As a college student he came home a lot and always seemed energized and renewed by getting away from college life for a long weekend or holiday break. Even when a new girlfriend, Kim, came into the picture, the two of them visited regularly.
A year or so after college, Mike and Kim began planning their wedding. Several weeks later at a summer picnic at Kim’s parents’ home, I was relaxing in a lawn chair. Soon I noticed Mike walking from the house out to the back yard. I started to call out for him to join me when suddenly, two young boys I had never seen before playfully raced after Mike. One jumped on his back, threw his little arms around Mike’s neck, and wrapped his legs around Mike’s waist like a baby monkey might wrap itself around its mother to hitch a ride. The other boy dove down to grab Mike’s ankles. Startled by the unexpected assault, Mike quickly regrouped. Laughing, he continued to walk, dragging the second’s boy’s body through the soft, green grass until both boys dissolved into loud, helpless giggles at his feet.
Who were these boys? I asked myself. And how did they know my son well enough to fling themselves at him with such wild and lively abandon? Seconds later, I realized they were young relatives from Kim’s family who clearly had interacted with Mike many times before. Another second later, it hit me: Mike’s upcoming marriage to Kim would not only give him a wife, it would give him a large and entirely new family—one I would hopefully come to know well in some ways, but would never truly be part of in others.
This reality had not, until that moment, moved fully from my brain to my heart. Was I losing a son or gaining a daughter, as the old saying goes? I hoped and prayed it would be the latter. Almost 20 years later, I am happy to report that our wise, wonderful daughter-in-law is as much a part of our family as Mike is a part of hers. Our son-in-law, Paul, too, means more to us than he will ever know.
The relationship with my children has grown and changed through the years in many ways. However, I recently was struck by an insight that somehow eluded me before. It followed a phone conversation with each. The call with Melissa included funny stories about her children, the sharing of advice on both sides, an exciting promotion at work, summer plans, babysitting dates, and more. The call with Mike lasted almost an hour, my husband and I both on the line. The focus was a career decision filled with significant, yet possibly unintended consequences that were difficult to foresee.
The tone and tenor of these conversations moved seamlessly from serious to silly and everything in between, as the subject matter required. Shortly thereafter, it occurred to me that my children were now more than just my children, more than my adult children, and more than the parents of my beautiful grandchildren. I don’t know exactly when the shift occurred, but I realized that my children had become two of my best friends. The realization washed over me slowly at first, then more quickly, as the full measure and meaning of it sunk in.
In a blog post entitled Motherhood—When You Work Yourself Out of the Job, Katie Mae summarized my entire experience perfectly:
You were the healing balm that provided nights of comfort when they were sick or scared…You were their biggest fan, as you spent hours sitting through extreme heat and bitter cold at games, competitions, and concerts. You were the taxi driver, referee, chef, janitor, bodyguard, seamstress, event coordinator, storyteller, and a hundred other things. And whether you realized it or not, from the moment you held your baby, your heart began preparing you for the day your role in life would change. Because deep down, each one of us knows these beautiful creatures were never ours to keep.
Ours to keep, no. But ours to love and enjoy, yes—in different ways through the years, as long and as well as we can.
Questions:
Media messages, expectations, and activities that traditionally surround Mother’s Day can be painful, complicated, or otherwise difficult for some. Does anyone you know come to mind when you consider this? How might you make the day easier for that person?
Many young people are drawn to an adult woman who becomes “a second mother.” These women include stepmothers, grandmothers, foster mothers, teachers, aunts, sisters, neighbors, or others who love, guide, protect, nurture, or in other ways serve as a substitute or additional mother. Do you have “a second mother?” What is/was that experience like for you?
Mother’s Day is celebrated on different days and in different ways all over the world. What do mothers everywhere have in common? How might their experiences vary?
