It’s not as bad as it was a couple years ago, but I can’t pretend life is just marching on as if all my littles were back in elementary school and we’re simply looking forward to a few weeks of summer vacation with all to resume as it should in a couple of months.
I think my trigger was downloading a bunch of pictures from Andrew’s freshman year of college. As I was looking through his Facebook pages, I ran across some he’d been tagged in that I’d never even seen. Some from his senior year of high school with his track buddies, his prom group, dates with long-time friends. Funny poses, young people I’ve loved forever, a few that I hadn’t remembered but then I did. Others went back to when he was 14 and on a pioneer trek. He and his friends (who are now all on missions) look so little and obviously so young. He was making a tortilla on a rock in his pioneer clothes. I had to stop and take it in. This was a period of his life when I don’t know that I really knew him, so I took some time. Then some of our closest family friends posted pictures of him and the others from a New Year’s Eve several years back. And another when they were all gathered around a table eating little kid lunch food, I think he may have been six. Memories came reeling in just like that. I was back in my friend’s kitchen. I was that young mom all over again. So glad that we had let them make such grand messes. Mostly the basement stays clean now. So I love that as a young family we somehow had the foresight to allow popcorn and ice cream and drinks and mattresses to fill the belly of our basement; our house will never don the pages of those slick magazines, but it’s been lived in and is as comfy as an old pair of slippers. It was a video in quick motion, panning over years and decades with friends he’d had—we’d had—who had lived in our house beside us. In just a few minutes a slew of memories reminded me of how quickly today turns into yesterday. As all moms of older kids can so keenly attest.
After a few minutes of reminiscing, I turned back to the task at hand and continued sending shot after shot to Costco for printing, but got stuck every so often, scenes I was glimpsing for the first time and others that were so familiar. How I absolutely adore the people in each photo, I’ve loved their friends like my own kids, and I couldn’t help but return to my young mom memories, stretching this undertaking throughout the morning. Ridiculous. Because it awoke emotions I’d been squelching or at least ignoring all spring.
Buffered by a to-do list I knew I’d never complete, May had come and gone without me having to contend with the deep feelings that the season should evoke. I endured by quietly keeping abreast of each day’s obligations, looking just far enough ahead to send out the next birthday card, to make sure we had food for the next gathering, that beds for the next group were made, that I had the right time for each concert and award assembly, and that I sent the prescribed number of cookies for each celebration. Without much time on my own, I simply set aside surmising what the ramifications of the month’s festivities would mean.
But now that the groups of company have subsided, the birthdays and celebrations have come and gone, the camping gear is all aired out and stashed away, I’ve dealt with the aftermath of sheets and towels along with a mother load of recycling and Good Will donations, I exhale as we shift gears. Of course we still have trips coming up, we have a fully stocked calendar with commitments all over the place, but it’s the doable kind of month, I see some white. And so I know I’m going to have to face the inevitable.
Now that all the hubbub has died down, it’s time to re-focus on Mitchell a little, to assess what he needs as he prepares to launch. And this is where I might start to feel. As I had earlier in the year when he was starting his last semester of high school. Those early winter months are emptier and we’re home more, and I consciously took snapshots in my mind of these easy, breezy everyday moments that I knew I’d want to cinch in a tightly drawn remembrance sack. I still see them, they’re not lost yet, but I’m making a point to notice them more because I know we don’t have much time left. I haven’t cried, I’m still not there yet. I’m tentatively hoping we can make this transition riding on the wings of jubilant anticipation of a great adventure instead.
But I know myself. And that my heart has been welded to this kid since the moment I first held him as a 9 lb 2 oz newborn. He was a dream baby, a wildly creative, ingenious, and messy toddler and kid. And teenager. He’s headstrong and intelligent, infuriatingly stubborn and intoxicatingly sweet. Smarter than anyone I know, it makes me laugh to see him seemingly incompetent when it comes to real life application. He’s fiercely independent, yet calls on us for the tiniest complexities of daily living. We can’t stay upset with one another, our hearts are just too soft for that. And for each other. His absence will leave a hole in our family, as every departing child does. I thought I’d be used to the idea by now, what with Andrew having been gone so long. But this is almost harder in a way because I know what to expect. I’m remembering that I’ll never have times quite like these again.
Just the other day, after a weekend wedding celebration, he continued swing dancing with his sisters in the kitchen, dodging both me and the open cabinet doors. I loved the enamored look on our little 10 year-old’s face, to be in favor with her usually-distant older brother. Forties music was blasting from Pandora and I was in my happy place. His friends were over just the other night, eating my cookies and playing Attack and watching Alone with us between moves. A Thursday not long ago he attended a political rally and downloaded, engaging all of us and our company over dinner. Lately we’ve talked about classes he’ll want to take, what his plans are for the upcoming year and beyond. We’ve sat outside chatting on the back porch, we’ve huddled close by the fire late at night. We’ve made pizzas in our little brick oven with friends. We’ve written to Andrew and watched movies as a family. We’ve gone on day trips and out to eat and on our Sunday walks in nature. We’ve camped and sat talking with friends who are like his aunts and uncles. We’ve worked in the yard nearly every evening since it’s been warm. I love that he works right beside us and that he talks as he follows us around. I love how he tends to his little herbs. And how he knows he still has to mow and weed even though he’s no longer in high school. I love that we’ve played games and eaten ice cream and cooked together, that we’ve watched stand up comedy and discussed the news. I’m going to miss it all so much because I’m living my dream. It’s been such a good phase for our family. One of our best. We’ve loved having teenagers so much, these have been my contented years, our pay-off years, my favorite so far. I worry that it will never be this good again. I love that he and his 15 year-old sister are tight, that they’re each others’ safe haven; nothing warms my heart like seeing them together. I love sending them off at 6:15 every morning together, the way he takes care of her and watches out for her. I love seeing them dance and tease together and cuddle together. I love that they take off to shop together, that they have adopted values of thrift and industry and creativity. I love it when their friends—who feel just like cousins—all come together and our family expands. I will miss them almost as much. I love our talks about every subject under the rainbow. I love the controversial ones the most because I value his opinion and angle. I love that our kids are open to talking about all sorts of things, even the hard stuff. I love our messy kitchen, the way they dig through our pantry and make treats with their friends. I love believing our home feels like their home. I love it all so much, and so I’m trying to not let the everyday days just absorb into another week. I’ve lived through a few summers with kids now. The older they get, the faster they go.
And I’ve lived long enough to know what comes next.
Losing your first-born just knocks the wind out of you, but what about the next? I’m pretty level-headed, and you know I’m not sentimental. Except when it comes to being a mom. Like you, I see my kids as my greatest investment. While I don’t take credit for their successes, and I can’t take their short-comings personally, it’s the one thing (besides my marriage) I do that really even matters. And so with another son leaving, I mourn the life we’ve shared, the regular days that are now relegated to only memories. I gave so much, I held back more than I wanted but less than I needed to. I cared so much, I wonder if it showed. I tried so hard, I wish I could do it all over again. Better this time. But I’m so incredibly grateful for even the blunder-filled days, the days I wanted to wish away, the exhaustion, the exasperation of it all. Because we’re good. It works out. I just thought it’d get easier to say goodbye to it all the second time around.
I feel like I’m losing my grip on motherhood. I want to stay exactly where we are. And yet you know I don’t. I absolutely can’t wait to hear how his first day of college goes, if he’ll think it’s hard, what job he’ll find, what he’ll do with his roommates on the weekends, who he’ll meet, what he’ll discover about himself. We long for him to experience what we did as freshmen, to fall in love, to meet amazing people who may be his friends for the rest of his life, to realize how much there is to learn. We want him to figure out what he believes. We want him to own that, to know for himself. You know that’s what we want.
And yet, for just another day, I’ll gladly remind him it’s his day to mow and that the dishes need to be unloaded again. I’ll try to remember where he’s working and what time he said he’d be home. I’ll take his tall, gentle hugs, his late nighttime talks, his enthusiasm for his homemade guitar and his cardboard-plastic-wrapped boat. I’ll bask in his smile and listen attentively as he talks about the girl he likes. I’ll chuckle inwardly as he learns the basics I took for granted he knew. I’ll forgive the piles of clothes that have littered his bedroom floor for years. And I’ll leave the cobweb above his window. Just because it’s so fitting. For now I’ll pretend it’s just another ordinary summer day, that we’ll be able to keep doing this for as long as we want. For just as long as I can, I’ll take swing dancing in the kitchen. And ice cream in the basement.
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