The vacuum in the wake of my grown two children departing from our home is sharp and bottomless. They live (by birth order, respectively) about 2,000 and 5,000 miles away from us. Adages like "great love risks a greater sense of loss" bubble up to the surface, useless and true. Mostly the love is clear and mutual but there is no pure sense of completely resolved love. The part that sharpens the black hole edges is the unresolved conflicts and the memory of conflicts resolved but still sore. I am tangled up in my love for them. My anxiety for their often precarious lives. Our desperation to reunite, all three of us, is real but there are mounting difficulties with those reunions. New health issues and old financial constraints.
We dropped off our youngest with our grandchild just this morning. The first day of absence is the keenest. Tomorrow I will remember the delight of an orderly house. Of removing the Play-Doh and rice from the area rugs. Of getting all the treacherous trike and step stool obstacles out of the walkways. Of walking through rooms not littered with clothing. Or small shoes and stuffed animals. Of things put away where they belong. But today I miss the tiny spoon a two-year old used to spoon yogurt into and around their mouth. There is a void where the chatter of a burgeoning vocabulary and new words being strung together filled this space...just a few hours earlier. I miss the way my youngest engaged that little person with compassion and patience. I miss the way my youngest and I navigate the difference in our expectations of each other. Perhaps I am not the ever-ready grandparent they had hoped for. Perhaps I'm not the grandparent I was hoping for. Perhaps I am just the best grandparent I can be.
These two humans that I pushed out into the world continue to surprise and delight and challenge me. I like them each so very much. They think and converse and laugh and weep with me. They care deeply. They know how to be stubborn and they know how to apologize. They teach me to be better. To be quiet and listen. To let go of my expectations and accept their changing lives. I wonder if we lived in the same village, would we love each other so fiercely?
I began my journey into parenthood at the ripe age of 19. I had been married for a year and was plagued by the paranoia of the religiously brainwashed, "if I wait too long to have children, would god make me barren?" Whatever the premature impetus, I never regretted having children. I had always wanted them, even if I jumped in too young. I was taught by my 1950's-era parents that the successful parent has obedient, well-behaved, compliant children. That my job was to ensure that I won the battle of wills and kept them safe and churned out productive, independent human beings. How differently I would approach that job today!
I watch my youngest with their child; doing the emotional work of not crushing a child's will is amazing, while maintaining their safety and teaching them a sense of communal cooperation. I took this toddler to a toy store, for heaven's sake, and they not only enjoyed looking at the toys, they were cooperative about putting up 90% of the toys they pulled off the shelves. They did not fuss when we left the store and I never had to threaten or get angry at them. There are just better ways. If they fussed about crossing the street (they wanted to push the stroller themselves), that was the only time I calmly picked them up and said it wasn't safe for them to push the stroller in the street. Both the Saint and I had them help with all kinds of activities: sweeping, laundry, cooking and vacuuming. They are enthusiastic about helping. Throwing things out, putting toys away, folding laundry and decorating cakes. It takes longer, is a bit messier but so much more fun.
The one memory from their visit that is etched forever in my mind is the night that we (my two grown children and I) stayed up until 2am. Just the three of us, talking and laughing. It felt as if no one wanted to break the magic of the moment. They are the...I've used up the superlatives...delight/joy/wonder/pride of my life. I am so goddamned lucky.
So my kids survived my mistakes, like I survived my parents' mistakes. If nothing else, it is the thread that binds all generations: our screw-ups. Today, one of the hardest part of parenting for me is the same as it ever was: how to be supportive but not swoop in and fix problems that they need to solve by themselves.
Postscript: So it's not 1,000 words and I didn't complete this challenge. I probably shouldn't have scheduled this at the same time as a daily drawing challenge! However, this essay is valuable so I'm posting anyway. I think I am overwhelmed with the idea of "telling our* story" because it feels like too much. This is predictable but still, I have to deal with it. I hope to get back to telling it because it's a great fucking story.
*The Saint's and mine.
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