I’ll say it up front: I miss my
oldest son. Adam graduated from high school on May 22, 2012, and left the nest
on May 25. He spent an amazing summer touring the country with the Academy Drum
and Bugle Corps. After only two weeks home, filled with shopping and laundry,
he was off again. Since that May, he has only been home for weekends and school
breaks. As I write this, his room is filled with a mountain of boxes from his
college dorm while he is touring for a second summer with the Academy.
Last summer, I missed him so much it
ached. I counted down the days until we would see him. In a way, I didn’t want
it to stop aching. That would mean that I was getting used to him being gone,
and I wasn’t sure I was okay with that. But after a four-week long visit at
Christmas, I realized that I missed him less. I was adjusting to his absence,
as it should be.
In August of 2012, my husband and I
delivered him to Northern Arizona University, moved in all of his stuff, and
left him there. Driving home, both of us a little misty-eyed, we looked at each
other and realized, “We did it!” And then it hit me.
This is what we had been working
toward for the past 19 years: The moment when we could leave our child at
college, a complete and prepared human being, and know that he would be
successful. In the telescopic way that memory shrinks our life down, I realized
that every action we had done as parents had unconsciously led us to this very
moment. From enduring two-year-old tantrums to hours sitting supervising
homework, we had been molding and shaping him into becoming a self-reliant and
responsible person. So that he could leave us.
And that’s why parenthood is the
cruelest job. From the moment when the nurse places that tiny baby in our arms
for the first time, we start the process of preparing that baby to leave us one
day. His utter dependence on us slowly dwindled as he learned to do things by
himself. From rolling over, to crawling, to walking, he slowly took steps to
independence. There was no clinging to my leg in preschool. He would wriggle
out of my grasp, so eager to play with his little friends. The exhausted mother
of a toddler, thinking “When will he ever grow up?” doesn’t realize how quickly
the days go by, how soon he will be grown and gone.
This day, though unseen at the time,
shaped so many of our decisions regarding our son. Holding him back in first
grade as he struggled with ADD and vision problems so that he would be
successful in school. Encouraging him to go to the 5th and 6th grade church
camp alone when all of his friends were going to the junior high camp. Telling
him as he started high school that this was his chance to reinvent himself.
In each situation, he succeeded. He
made new friends when he repeated a grade and became a good student. He learned
that he could go someplace by himself, make friends, be accepted, and have a
great time. And in high school, he joined the marching band, switched
instruments to play the tuba, and became section leader twice. What he learned
in these situations would come into play as he prepared to leave for college.
As parents, we see the irony: This
child, whom we love so much, we have to teach, guide, and mold so that he can
fly on his own. We want to hold on to him, saying, “Don’t leave us!” and yet
that’s exactly the wrong thing to do. With tears in our eyes, we let him go,
knowing that he will come back…but it will never be the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment