It was bed time.
As I tucked my 9 year old, Paige, into her bed,
and as if she’d been thinking on it for awhile,
in the dark she suddenly asked,
“Do you ever think about how if Daddy hadn’t said ‘yes’ to being invited to come out to that Irish pub that St. Patrick’s night that you guys met, our whole LIFE might not ever have existed?”
“I know!” I brightened.
“Isn’t it so weird to think about?
How that one little, seemingly insignificant decision led to an entire family?!”
Silence, and just staring.
I thought she was thinking more about it,
until I got back,
“Honestly, that was just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question.
I really need to go to sleep.”
Like so often lately, I had just been shut down.
That late-night halted discussion, palm towards my face, pretty well sums up my life as a mom these days.
It feels like a loop of me getting excited about a plan or a discussion,
and them putting the squash on nearly everything.
The worst offenders: The preteen and teenager.
Those two have irritation for DAYS.
The look I got the other day for asking if maybe *I* could also use the bathroom?
If looks could kill I would have passed away.
There are so many books and articles on what to expect when you’re expecting.
So much info out there for the brand new mom,
But I feel like the piece that needs to be written is “What to Expect When Your Job Feels Done.”
On Thursday my oldest daughter turned 22.
She is brilliant, and beautiful, responsible, and fun.
It was the first year she told me I wouldn’t see her on her birthday, as her husband Aaron had planned a day of surprises for her.
I told her that was fine, and that I understood, and in my mind I really did;
But later that afternoon as I sobbed to my therapist, I realized that my HEART still wasn’t recieving it.
“….and I didn’t get to make her a CAKE.” I cried.
“I always make the cakes.”
The bottom line: She doesn’t need me anymore.
The books talk about newborns, and toddlers, pre-teens, and teens, but the last stage
– The Grieving Stage –
It needs to be talked about more.
My poor therapist probably got a hand cramp scribbling notes on me that day,
Missing a life, now long past, with four little girls I so dearly loved.
They don’t warn you how if feels when you face your own future one day,
feeling kind of abandoned on the path alone;
When your whole identity has been wrapped up for years in being their mom.
When they don’t call or text for days, or want to just be dropped off where no one will see,
when they shy away if you hug them too long.
If I held them as long as I want to,
I think I would never let go,
which is why I get that this was the plan all along:
To love them, and teach them to fly on their own.
No one talks about what the mother bird does after her babies are all gone.
I picture her laying back down in the nest to pretend they’re still underneath her for awhile.
I picture her hesitant to go.
I remember this phase so well with my own mother.
I was her only girl.
The phase of me pulling away just about undid her.
I remember rolling my eyes every time I walked away from the car.
I wish more than anything that I could go back now to that version of her, sitting, crying in her old Toyota Camry.
I wish that I could wrap her up, and tell her I now see her,
and that she meant absolutely everything to me.
I wish I could tell that version of her that I get it now why she called me first thing on every adult birthday, and from the other end of the line pressed play on the cassette tape she had recorded of the very moment of my birth.
I used to just groan and laugh at that tape.
But, oh, my heart feels it now.
It, too, bears the pain of The Pulling Away
as I sit up nights alone and look back through old photo albums so well worn their covers are about to break.
Little round faces, and chocolate mouths.
“Remember this time at the zoo?”
I’ve carried it all with me for so long now, it’s like without their hands in mine I don’t know what else to hold or what to do.
But as hard and as heavy as the feeling is when you no longer are the one to make the cake,
My greatest wish is that they, too, would one day feel all these same feelings,
because a life spent raising your children
is a life that is so worth the ache.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
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.
