Leaving
8-28-09
Conversations with my friends take a depressing tone at this time of year. Late August and our kids are headed back to college. Sandy told me last night that she was not looking forward to a quiet house. With teens and young adults, the house always seems to be filled with activity, excitement, music, messes, dirty laundry, remnants of food everywhere and organized chaos. Sandy liked having her daughter, Katie around, getting to see her friends and being a part of her life if only for a little while.
Summer is so temporary! Relationships change. Moms and children are together forever and then it seems as if they turn into college freshman and are gone in a blink. There is this huge hole in your life where there used to be constant purpose and stalwart commitment. You wake up and realize that they really are gone and you won’t see them for a couple of months. Ouch!
Things will never be the same. No matter what your broken heart wants or needs, moms realize eventually that their leaving represents a major milestone in life and no matter how much we hate the idea, our children will change.
The poets and authors have been writing for centuries about how nothing really stays the same only it takes late August to drive that message home, especially to tender, loving hearts. Life takes on a surreal quality like the children’s book about The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown.
Remember? The little bunny runs away and the mother patiently says that she will find him and they will be together. The bunny changes form and becomes a fish, a crocus, a rock but the mother continues to say “‘If you run away, I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”
While the book is meant to reassure a young reader that mom will always be there, it goes deeper and summarizes the relationship between mother and child, often a relationship that moms think will never change. There is a false permanence that underlies this view. Relationships change and kids grow up. What happens when the little bunny goes off to college? Usually the bunny is fine but the mother rabbit is lost and hurting.
I know that for me it took a couple of weeks to get over it and I have been through this with three children over the course of many years. Actually I confessed to a friend last night that I never really do get over it the act of leaving. Parting from your children is just not a perfected act. For me it’s messy and complicated.
Even though I have worked hard to refocus on my new life, my friends and my career, a huge part of me harkens back and I become the mama rabbit all over again. I feel the dedication, the devotion, the pride and the pain that parenthood brings. So what’s wrong with that?
When I visit my son and it comes time to leave, my heart does a little painful dance. I remind myself that his independence is a sign that I have done my job well and as for leaving, well, he is only a highway’s ride away.
