This weekend we attended a memorial service for my dear friend’s mother, Roseanne, who for much of my teen years was like a second mother to me.
Hers was the house we all wanted to be at, with the always stocked fridge, the swimming pool with thick, freshly washed towels, and the freedom for us to just be ourselves:
Listening to reggae, laughing about nonsensical things, completely free.
I remember marveling at how she never really showed disappointment in us.
How she looked at us with awe, like we were delightfully entertaining.
She just stood back and smiled, loved practically.
She let us all discover the world in our own way.
There must have been something to this method of quiet observance,
because her children have all become highly successful adults who spoke through tears of their respect and love for her on Saturday.
After the eulogy, her only son got up to play her favorite hymn in a trio, and as they played,
a little bird flew up onto the awning directly above them, and joined in their singing only for the exact amount of time they sang, at which point it simply looked around, and flew away into the garden; Never more to be seen.
I have thought about that bird every day.
As everyone milled around afterwards, wiping their eyes and giving their condolences, I made my way to the table of framed photos of Roseanne, and just stood, smiling, thinking of all the ways she had impacted me.
I realized I had her to thank for my love of Van Morrison.
In my house growing up we only listened to Christian Music, and we did things like hiding our Mariah Carey tape under our pillows so no one would find it,
but at her house I was introduced to a few of the true greats I still listen to today.
At that table, speckled with fallen oak leaves, I thought about letting go of people and things.
I have a hard time with both.
I feel things so deeply.
June always feels like a letting go season for me.
The sun slows us, and the spring colors fade.
Her face in those frames, laughing and with her family, reminded me of all the ways we are captured in hearts, and in minds, and in arms, and in the vault of other people’s memories.
I went home to scroll Facebook, and realized the volume of graduation posts, and even in my own saved memories, I came across a post from 6 years ago of my own daughter, Alena’s, graduation, and all of the feelings I’d had about releasing her out into the world on that day.
I had Alena when I was 23.
For years it was just her and me.
We lived alone in a tiny upstairs apartment that I was struggling to cool and to keep.
Alena’s younger years were marked with my personal struggle, and when I look back I regret so many things;
But, she always knew she was loved, and cherished.
I did my best to raise her in the right way.
I can remember holding it together so well the day of her graduation, until my friend Liz had leaned over as the marching band warmed up to say,
“It really is something special when you started out alone, just the two of you,”
and I barely ever recovered from that point on.
That was exactly it. Alena is a piece of me.
I don’t even think I can explain the proud kind of ache that came over me when I watched the top of her cap as she crossed the stage. We had done it. She and I had fought through, and triumphed, and she was graduating with high honors.
A thousand memory moments played out before me.
I realized that you start out waiting for them to walk from the beginning, and then somehow, it also ends that way:
You, holding your breath and reaching out your hands to guard their sides, open, stay open,
allowing and willing them to go forward, but anxiously guarding them inches away in case they need you.
When kindergarten comes, you cry, thinking it will be your biggest separation,
Then there are school dances, the day they drive off alone for the first time,
and maybe boyfriends one day.
I am not sure, though, if anything compares to the high school graduation.
To that far-away, observed handshake.
A life-changing, moving-on moment.
A little bird flying away.
Alena had left me once with a backpack and two braided pigtails, with giant child eyes, scared of what was in front, waving from her first day of preschool from what was called
“The Goodbye Window:”
A place where parents could stand and give their anxious preschooler one more farewell wave.
The teachers had impressed upon all the parents at orientation that sometimes lingering too long, and saying too much could work against everyone involved.
Best to part peacefully, and allow for adjustment to take place.
Whereas once she was biting her lip, trying not to cry from our parting,
on this day, she had waved, and smiled, and just kept walking.
I have stood many times over now at a “Goodbye Window.”
Many times I have felt both love and ache.
At this particular phase of my life I face a big year coming next year, as both middle daughters get set to now, also, graduate.
My 15 year old, Tessa, skipped a grade when her teachers realized she was gifted, meaning she will walk the stage in the same year as her 17 year old sister, Chloe.
There will be two senior proms, Tessa will get her driver’s license.
I am gearing up for the wave.
Both of these girls have all kinds of plans about how grand their lives will be, as teenagers do, and I’ve had to take a note from my friend’s mother who passed, Roseanne, and learn to stand back, and simply smile instead of always sharing all the things I want to protest, or judge, or say;
To let them see my face in the background with awe, and approval of the good in them,
and not just remember me as always having some opinion to give on the correct way.
Just like death, parting (in all its forms) is all part of the human experience,
and without the concept of it in the future, we might not appreciate the holy nature of
good memories.
In this next season, I hope to be like Roseanne, and to remember the value in just standing back with a smile to observe the love in my life, and to allow others freedom to be themselves,
and to have the room to breathe.
I think, perhaps, Roseanne was the bird on the awning,
and I hope one day it can be said of me
that I took it all in,
watched it unfold from my perch,
Sang along to the music that was important,
And when my time came,
I looked toward the cool garden that waited for me,
and then I simply flew away.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
