I think it started when I was to pick out a mother-of-the-bride dress; he gave me the color and site I was to order from, and so started the surreal introduction to being one of the mothers. I remember back being 22, youthful, engaged and perusing Bride in my college apartment. To be on the other end feels old, and I wonder all the time how we got here so soon. Not here to the wedding festivities, rather here in life. It's been a month already since they got married. But it wasn’t until the Sunday after the reception that I realized my tears were coalescing with the water from my early-morning shower. I hadn’t expected this, they just sort of dripped incoherently down my drained body without any provocation. I hadn’t really given myself the space to consider much of anything up to this point. Maybe similar to planning a funeral, thankfully there are tasks to distract us from our pain and our thoughts and the permanence of what’s transpired. But it was official now that both the wedding and receptions were over and it was the day after. I had to face the altered stage we were in, and out of nowhere I felt a sense of grief, unanticipated and from deep within.
Obviously, we as parents recognize our influence on our children and their lives is fleeting, our time with them so limited. But in the middle years we hardly pay attention to such adages. Days are full, they’re so present, demands are high. We take so much of it for granted because we feel that every day will bring more of the same as the day before it. I did. I try to tell my young friends how quickly it goes, pleading with them—although I know it will make no difference; they must experience it for themselves. But especially once they hit high school. The leaving accelerates. Sports, jobs; they are gone for so much of the day. Even more so once they start to drive. The rug’s pulled out from under us even though we felt that we had a firm stance on it. We saw inklings of their independence emerging but talked ourselves out of it thinking surely we will still ride together, we will still go to the pool and go shopping together, surely we will still be major players in their lives. I didn’t realize how suddenly and completely that would all change.
And yet here I am again. I obviously knew what was coming. I’d seen it from months back. But it’s like reading the last chapters of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, my bible as a young and naive pregnant woman. I don’t remember much past the delivery chapter. Was there more? Did I miss the last section because I was so caught up in the birth and thought that was the climax, the whole point of the book? Maybe I thought I knew enough by that point. Maybe I didn’t realize birthing was the easy part.
No one told me about the after. The loneliness I’d feel as a new mom, isolated, sore, alone, exhausted. Maybe I should’ve kept reading. I didn’t know how long the healing would take, I didn’t realize how disorienting and trying this new phase would be. I think I had the second book, What to Expect the First Year. But it’s all sort of fuzzy looking back; I must’ve read it. Did I read it? Did it help? Would it have made a difference if I had known what to expect? Would it have made any of it any easier?
Likewise, if my more seasoned friends had warned me, if I had anticipated these feelings my first-born son’s union would provoke, would it have made a difference? Does knowing ever make loss or change any less personal, less challenging?
I’m not trying to be dramatic. I’m not that kind of person or mom. But it feels so final once the ceremonies and celebrations are over. I think that’s why it struck me so suddenly and forcefully. It really is over. My season as an influencer, the relationship I’d been so accustomed to, all I’d known about how to be a mom.
I accidentally cried to Todd about this on our morning walk that day, confessing my weak moment in the shower. And I was surprised, but not really, to hear him sniffling beside me as we welcomed the dawn. Our new day. Our next stage of life. That we should’ve been used to by now. He’s been gone for years, they’ve loved each other for months. But here it was for real, official now. He reminded me that this is what we raised him to do, and it’s the same point we’re trying to get our other kids to: independence, to not need us in the same ways, to be capable and confident enough to move out and move on away from us, to create lives of their own. Of course. That’s exactly what we’ve strived for as parents. They’re their own family now. And have been for awhile now when I really think about it. Adults. A team. Two who have left their parents and now cleave to each other. I get it. I’m beyond proud of them. And so happy for them. And for us. Even as it grieved me to sense the finality of it.
I know that’s a dismal way to look at our family dynamics, but I can’t help acknowledging that those chapters are over, this must be the end. It seems there is simply no other way to think about it. And yet I sense and must somehow remember that there was more in my book. That just as his birth was not the end, having a son be married will likely not be either. There was a recovery period where we both took some time to get used to our new surroundings, our new normal. And maybe that’s how I can reframe my thinking now. Certainly all is not lost. Surely there is still something to look forward to.
If I read ahead, I might see family gatherings, trips, graduations, dinners, holidays, maybe even grandkids. Just as I had an entire lifetime of firsts with him starting 24 years ago, maybe these new firsts can be just as exhilarating, exciting, and joyful. But in ways I hadn’t considered.
As I pondered on the possibilities, I felt a surge of insight. I noticed an answer to many, many hopeful prayers, ones I scarcely dared pray aloud, more like wishes on a distant star. I was granted a paradigm shift in that moment that is so obvious to me now but soothed my lonely soul that early morning. A daughter. I’d wanted more kids ever since we decided we were done more than 15 years ago. Especially the older I’ve become and the further removed from the cacophony of young life, the more I’ve longed for more; I wish over and over we’d had another. But this now is even better. To have her join with us, to know her family, to not have the same burdensome role of active mothering but to just watch, to just enjoy them, to be a resource if needed but mostly just a source of love. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude rather than sadness, and I’m seeing this transition not so much as a loss, but rather a gain. And maybe, like my book, their marriage is simply a beginning just as birth was not the end. I just didn’t read far enough ahead to know that often what we see as the finale is only the opening act of the rest of the play.
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