There are two sets of graduation caps and gowns laying on my credenza right now.
They were casually slung there, still in their plastic packaging, by my two high school senior daughters on the days they’d been given them, just before they breezed back out the door to who even knows where.
They’ve laid there for a week now, and it depends on the day whether I avert my eyes from them, or give myself a little bit of time to contemplate what exactly they stand for.
These days I find myself vacillating wildly between pondering the quickness of their childhoods, and how fast it has all gone, to trying to disassociate from it.
I sometimes wonder, if I had known how having two about to graduate at the same time would feel, if I would have agreed, like I did, to skip the younger of the two up a grade, landing her, (though two years younger) in her older sister’s grade.
At the time, it was a, “We think she’s very advanced” from the teacher, a smile, and a “She’s basically already teaching the class,” but now, as I wrap my head around the fact that soon I will be watching them both cross the stage just two days apart, I’m feeling all kinds of things.
Mostly, “How did we even get here?!”
But, here is where we are.
They will graduate in a handful of weeks at 18 and 16.
They have their college courses picked, they both have jobs and boyfriends,
and they are suddenly talking about much bigger sounding things, like where they imagine they will live.
Only, while their eyes sparkle, and they look toward their futures excitedly,
I find myself standing in my dining room looking at those two cap and gown packages many days, feeling like I might just need to lay down, flat on my face for a little bit.
The finish line.
We made it; Sometimes running, sometimes limping,
after years of me giving them my everything, in the beginning of June we will be there.
As a stay-at-home mom for the entirety of their childhoods, I made my life about helping them get to this place. My greying hair will tell you that I gave it all for them.
There were hours spent after dinner helping with math homework, and many exhausted nights spent gluing things to tri-fold boards.
There were conferences with teachers, and things I fished out of backpacks that should have probably been entered into some kind of evidence, and now, there are the realizations of things only a mother thinks about:
Like that I probably won’t ever pack them another sack lunch,
or that the picture package order forms will now come to an end.
Whether I feel ready or not, I have completed all of them,
and as I look at those cap and gown packages waiting for their big day, I realize more than ever that it was not just me who carried them here.
It took a village.
It took a sea of praise-worthy hands.
At the top of the list of those is my own mother, for the countless rides to and from school she so often offered them.
My mother spent 10 years living with us when they were in elementary school.
Her influence is deeply woven in.
She was right there for every questionable science project.
She’d go late to the store for items for them.
She was there for dozens of rushed breakfasts, and sick days.
When I simply couldn’t with it anymore, she would graciously take over.
Without her I would have surely gone mad.
When I felt like throwing things during fourth grade math homework, (which should be listed as a war crime, in my opinion) she would calmly step in.
Next, there are the teachers who stood out; The ones who went above and beyond to show up in meaningful ways that I will never forget, and proved they saw my girls as individuals, with specific needs and personalities; The ones who sent thoughtful messages when I was at my breaking point, and made me aware of their prayers.
When the 18 year old was younger, and was suffering through major, debilitating anxiety over starting a new class at school, she had one teacher who spent her whole summer showing up at our door to take her on little dates in an attempt to get to know her better, so she would feel more comfortable in her class once that dreaded school year began.
She wasn’t just an elementary school teacher.
She became a trusted confidante and friend.
Besides them, there are those of my own friends who have treated my girls like their own for years, whether in caring for them as I worked, without a request for payment, or in sending them messages to check on them without prompting.
What an amazing thing to know there are women on this earth who would drop anything to be there for my kids.
These women have been cheerleaders, and an extra shoulder for them to cry on for so many years. They have witnessed all the stages and phases.
They have put energy into truly memorizing them,
and nothing shows love like someone memorizing you.
I have seen how that love has helped to shape them.
There were women on message boards, and on church pews who just sat and listened as I talked about big things they were facing, and comforted me as my tears dripped.
There were aunts, cousins, and nurses,all showing up to remind us that they viewed themselves as true, willing partners in anything we hoped to build.
Looking at those caps and gowns now, I realize that the answer to “how we got here” is that
we made it to this point carried in the arms of many other women.
A “Village’ of them.
When I think of a village, I think of one in a remote location, that is hard to reach, untouched by outside customs, and with behaviors and a culture specific to it.
It takes work to get there.
I think of women sitting against mud huts that have been formed from what is elemental.
These women are often roughly clothed, beading, feeding, and laughing with children who lay sprawled in the grass.
I think of groups who walk for water together, then carry heavy vessels of it home on their head, at the detriment to their own backs, and I honestly cannot picture a more exact representation of that kind of village than these women in my own life have been.
The water carriers. The weavers. The wailers.
Together we did what needed to be done to sustain, and to build, and to protect.
We watched over what was precious together,
we worked together to quench.
It was never just me,
and now these two that we have raised together to know our ways will become willing participants in their own villages.
I know this about them.
From here, these two will build things, and nurture others, as well.
From here, they will continue to learn, and also begin to teach, themselves;
And, if they are lucky, one day, in a quiet moment, they, too, will contemplate the power of these types of villages under a shade tree somewhere, as they watch the evidence of a world connected;
As a breeze moves through the trees around them, and across the dry grass.
Those caps and gowns remind me:
We get nowhere alone.
All our biggest moments beg us to recognize how we got to them,
and to remember that, so often, it is because we were carried across the parched earth to the water by all of the mothers, teachers, healers, family members, and friends whose effort and presence in our lives have formed our villages.
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.
