the girl jumped out of a plane last week. i look at the sky and think about being 10,000 feet up and stepping out…..
skydiving was on my bucket list at her age. that and hang-gliding, a hugely-70’s thing. growing up on long island, i was hanging out with people who surfed and camped in the dunes, fished in the middle of the night and scuba-dove into wrecks off the beach. and so it didn’t surprise me when she wrote to me that she had ‘just jumped out of a plane’. i celebrate her adventuring spirit.
the boy bought a grill this week. when did he grow up enough to own his own grill? his adventures are all about his spirit – with an ever-growing circle of friends who support him and let him be in his own skin. i celebrate his adventuring spirit.
wasn’t it yesterday when the boy and i walked hand in hand to the girl’s school to pick her up from kindergarten? wasn’t it yesterday when he ran around the field and picked dandelions, dirt flying, and reached up to me with them in his fist, saying “woses for momma”? wasn’t it yesterday when she carried over big piles of books for me to “wead, momma, wead”? wasn’t it yesterday i rocked them to sleep at night after the perfunctory ‘good night moon’ reading?
so many adventures. it has all flown by. i talked to linda yesterday and she laughed when i said, “we realize we actually don’t know anything. time just flies by and we know nothing.” she is gentle and wise and an amazing adventurer, taking on new stages of life with grace and generosity.
every single one of these moments weaves into my heart – yup, that thready heart of mine. i hold them close to me and give thanks for adventures that are big, adventures that are small. adventures that have taught me patience, adventures that challenge me. i try not to have fear or hold on too tight, but…well, i’m human.
hesistantly, because moms just sometimes seem out of the running when it comes to children thinking about people adventuring, i wrote to my daughter that i had always wanted to skydive at her age. she wrote back, “you can still do it.”
maria shriver, in her book and one more thing before you go, wrote, “but for your mother, empty-nest pain and grief is genetic…she took care of you, nurtured you, enjoyed you, is in awe of you – and now she’s letting you go. how could she NOT have deep feelings about it? …think of the alternative. do you really want a mother who doesn’t care….”
“it’s the most wonderful time of the year” is playing in the background as i write this. it transports me back to my growing-up years…my sweet momma and dad played christmas carols on the stereo non-stop at this time of year. frank, dean, burl, jim, robert – all household names playing on old 33’s or on the local fm radio station. i can see out our front window, i can taste the hot cocoa on the couch with my mom, i can see the old thin-glass ornaments and the tinsel my dad patiently put up strand by strand. we got the luminaria ready for the neighborhood christmas eve gathering in the street before the 11:00 church service that let us out into the midnight turn into christmas day. we anticipated.
years later. each season it was late into the night that we wrapped gifts, closing off the dining room so that even if one of the children came downstairs, too excited to sleep through the night, we would be able to prevent them from coming into the room laden with gifts in the midst of santa wrapping them. christmas carols played in the background. before i went to sleep i would sit in the living room – with all the lights off- and gaze at the christmas tree in all its splendor. and i anticipated.
i would get really excited right around the time i needed to drive north to pick up the girl or the boy from college for the christmas holiday. readying their rooms and checking to be sure all the gifts i had purchased were adequately hidden, i would drive -with christmas carols playing in the car- to pick each of them up, with all the stuff they needed for the break. with great anticipation.
when the girl and the boy could drive themselves home or get a ride from a significant other, i would wait and wait. i would try not to text too many times “where are you now?” and i would double-check my menus and run to the grocery store. i might wrap a few gifts, but i still waited until the middle of the night on christmas eve – with carols playing in the background – to wrap most of the stocking stuffers and the presents that would grace the base of the tree. and i anticipated.
this year is the first year that i won’t have both the girl and the boy here for christmas. the boy will come from the big city to be here, but the girl is high in the mountains teaching other people how to have great glee on a snowboard. she told me on the phone late last night “i told someone today that my mom is probably having a hard time with this – the first time i won’t be home for christmas.” she’s right. this is tough.
i now know what my own sweet momma felt each of those years i could not be at their home for christmas. it is in our dna to want our children to be happy, to feel fulfilled, to find joy in the simplest things, to celebrate each day, not just christmas. but the physical presence of your children makes a big difference. it’s huge. seeing them happy and fulfilled and joyful, seeing their faces and hugging them…hovering isn’t so bad, we moms think…it’s the holiday. ok, it’s any day. because in all the world, in its twists and turns and ups and downs and ebbs and flows, there are only a few things that remain the same. one of them is your mom. this is the first year my sweet momma will be celebrating christmas in heaven with my daddy. this is tough.
the christmas carols are playing in the background. they transport me. each one of them. each one of them has a story. each one of them has some history in my mind’s eye and in my heart. it is a mixed bag of emotions held together by ribbons of love, by wishes and times of joy, by memories and times of wistfulness and sadness, by dreams and great anticipation.
the air is cooler. there are leaves on the ground, crunchy as you walk. the light is different – a golden, crisp hue. the flowers are starting to wane (well, at least ours are.) babycat isn’t sleeping in the window every night now; sometimes he can be found curled in the blankets on the bed.
it is fall. fall…my sweet momma’s favorite time of year. mine too.
fall. for so many it is a time to embark on new adventures. children in a new grade of school, teachers shaping goals with new students, parents packing up carloads of shower supplies, comforters, notebooks, pens, pencils, plastic bins and driving long distances to drop their babies off at college. i distinctly remember this….the first time with both of my children.
boys are different than girls. and so it was with the boy, my second to go to college. we drove a few hours and unpacked the car into his dorm room. he didn’t want me to arrange it or hang things on the wall with him. he was ready to just go. having been through this once, i knew i would live through it, but it was tough to walk away from my buddy, this once-little-boy who picked dandelions for me and who made me mac & cheese at 10pm the night of my 50th birthday because i had played for a charity event and hadn’t been offered anything to eat. the one who told me that to move ahead i needed to stop going in circles and needed, instead, to be a ray…move out from the centrifugal force of the pain. the one who made me watch ‘family guy’ again and again with dinner on our laps. the one who shared the stage with me on his tenor, laughing at our hidden mistakes and the notes we made up on the spot. all those tennis matches i couldn’t breathe through. the same boy who slept in the bed of the huge rented pickup truck under the stars with me, just because. no, it’s not easy walking the other direction as he walks to have a smorgasbord of dinner i didn’t make for him. but it’s necessary and it’s right. and he was embracing it just as the girl did.
it was a few years before that, and now, many years ago, and inside the scion it was glowing pink with all the pink dorm supplies we had amassed for the girl’s first dorm room. you couldn’t have fit a snickers bar in the back if you wanted it, it was that loaded with stufffff. we drove the six hours to minneapolis to move her into her new life. on the way we stopped and etched our initials (and me, a peace sign) into the towering sandstone rock formations we passed each time driving that route. she was excited and i was, well, you know how i was.
after spending the night and then hours the next day (move-in day) unpacking and with her turning down my offer to organize her socks (thereby extending my time there) it was time to take a walk on campus. we got close to the student union and she turned to me and said that she was going to go. “go where?” i asked. “go meet some people,” she said. it dawned on me that she actually meant it was time for ME to go. to leave. wait. what? after eighteen years plus of being right here, right near her? all our times together. opening the sunroof of the car in the middle of a winter’s night, with our sunglasses on, with summer music pouring out the windows. shopping. talking in southern accents the whole day at a country music festival, convincing people we were from nashville. navigating the dye-ing of the tips of her beautiful blonde hair red. shopping for prom gowns. the honor of accompanying her (without breathing the entire time) while she played exquisite oboe solos. mommy and me swim class. holding her close for her forty-five minute long hissy fits. the zillion times she crept over to me with an armful of picture books saying, “read, momma.” the moments i memorized in the rocking chair as she fell asleep.
tears came to my eyes as i looked at her, this beautiful girl, wracking my brain for all the wise things i knew i needed to tell her at that moment. all i could say was, “go. be yourself. be amazing. i love you.” and then i tried hard not to weep. she hugged me and turned to go. she walked away with grace and confidence and exhilaration and anticipation. so much joy. and i watched. full of pride and joy and intense yearning to go back in time, just for a bit.
my phone buzzed in my pocket. i took it out and saw she had sent me a text message while she was walking. it read, “don’t be sad, mom. be ecstatic. i love you.”
and now the girl is high in the mountains living her life and the boy is in the city living his.
and me? i’m in the fall of remembering and the fall of anticipation. ecstatic.
the girl jumped out of a plane last week. i look at the sky and think about being 10,000 feet up and stepping out…..
reverse threading 