Category: Mothering

The one thing I haven’t done since my return to Kansas a week ago, is to go see my daughter, Emery, and simply hang with her and catch up, face to face.  I know.  She doesn’t live here anymore.  I should know that.  I helped box up belongings and distributed them to Good Will, my basement, and a moving truck parked in their driveway on I swear the hottest, most humid day that Kansas has ever seen in May.  The remaining items were then stuffed into my car and driven to Ft. Collins, CO, where I then helped unload, unpack and empty the contents into cupboards, shelves and closets.  I know which drawer her orange-handled carrot peeler is in, but keep forgetting that she and her husband, Miles have moved.

On the Colorado side of the 657 mile journey…

In order to understand where I am now, I feel like I have to back up several years to when I first was divorced.  My son, Grant, was a senior year in high school and my daughter, Emery, a freshman. My oldest son, Thomas, was already in college.  Although Grant was a part of my transition,  it was after that first year when I was no longer coasting on the affects of adrenalin and making up my life a day at a time, when the real work began.  It was with Emery that I truly cut my teeth of independence and began to figure out exactly who I was and what I was supposed to be doing.  I had already done what I thought was the hardest part, but would later learn that it wasn’t the jumping off the proverbial cliff that was the hardest part, but rather, my anticipation of growing the wings I would need for a safe landing. That’s what kept me up at night.  Selfishly, I was grateful to not have to be alone when I had to go through the crises that seemed to come with regularity, including an exploding water pump in the basement and the bird’s nest in the porch light that caught fire from the heat of the bulb on a windy night, ending in a 911 call.  Although we were both treading in new waters and had no idea what we were doing, we had each other and not knowing feels a whole lot better when you have someone sitting next to you. Emery showed me what grace under fire looked like and unbeknownst to her, I’m sure, became my teacher….she and Lorelei Gilmore, that is, the leading role from the TV show “The Gilmore Girls”.

Emery and I loved the Gilmore Girls and would tune in whenever it was on.  It was entertainment for Emery, but far more for me.  I tuned in to learn how to be a divorced Mom to a teen-aged girl.  Lorelei Gilmore helped me find the confidence I needed to maneuver my way in this new role and as odd as it may sound to put such stock in a TV character, also made me feel not so alone in this new place. We (my television mom friend, Lorelei, and I) were on the same time schedule, with daughters who would be flying the nest at the same time.  I watched with anticipation, excitement and a deep seated sadness as we both seemed to be marking days at the same time and with the same speed.  I’ve got to think that Emery knew this as we sat next to each other on the couch every Sunday night and tuned in.  Even now, several years later, I am often touched to tears when I hear Carol King’s song, “Where You Lead” (the show’s lead in song) because of the many memories it conjures up.  I knew what was going to happen in the show because it was inevitable.  The daughter goes to college.  She leaves.

In the spring of Emery’s junior year, we got to enjoy several weeks of actually watching the process of  “flying the nest,” when a pair of cardinals nested in a tree right outside our kitchen window. Not even the Gilmore girls witnessed the incredible course of events that unfolded in the weeks to come (that we knew of…), although we both agreed it would have been a great story line for the show.  We went from watching mom sitting on the eggs, to seeing the babies peck their way out of the tiny shells then watched as dad would forage for food and bring it back to the mom, who would then feed her babies.  We were both awed by the beauty of watching the two birds turn into a family and the roles that all seemed so familiar to us. We watched from our own perch on the kitchen floor, all hunched down below the window sill and barely breathing, so as not to frighten them.  It became our TV and for me,  another role model to learn from.

We followed them, felt connected to them and I learned from them.  It wasn’t long before we watched the papa bird begin to teach the babies how to fly by flying to a nearby branch then would look back to the nest of baby birds and whistle.  We translated the whistle to,  “watch me and then do what I do.”  And eventually, they did.  Emery and I both beamed with maternal joy as we watched what were only eggs in a nest a few weeks ago, grow up, find their independence and make their maiden flight over to a nearby branch.  We witnessed as they practiced the short flight over and over again, always with a safe return to the comforts of the nest and mom.  A few days later, the babies had all flown the nest and we assumed were filled with the excitement of having their own places.  Emery and I had a high school graduation to attend and made one last look at the nest before leaving the house, now empty of its babies. Something seemed very poignant about the sequence of events given the timing of our leaving for a high school graduation.  I had been witnessing my own reality of a soon to be empty nest in the truest sense of the word.  Could a metaphor ever again be this spot on? If she hadn’t been a bird, I would have enjoyed a coffee and a chat with her, about that empty nest and all.  Did it feel too big now?  Is it lonely?  When we got home a few hours later, we were surprised by our discovery.  Lo and behold, all the babies had returned home from their various homes on branches in nearby trees.  I couldn’t help but smile, and felt a huge sense of relief for their mama.

It’s not a very clear photo, but we were being very thoughtful with our presence while watching from the kitchen window as we didn’t want to scare the protective mother.

I couldn’t help but think about that series of events with the family of cardinals while on the road to Ft. Collins in my overly loaded car.  Whether it was 657 miles down I-70 or from one tree to the next in my back yard, it was all the very same thing from the viewpoint of a mom….leaving the nest, the town, the state.  While I followed Emery’s car for every one of those 657 miles, I thought about the last time I had followed her on the highway, both of us with overloaded cars, when I moved her into her dorm at the University of Kansas.  I worried about her and how she’d do with this next big transition.  Or so I told myself… I was really worried about me and how I would handle this next big transition.  There was comfort, both times, in being able to take refuge in the comfort of being alone in my car.  I could cry.

Again, I followed my daughter down the highway as she tested her wings – this time with Miles

I’m certainly not expecting Emery to land back in my nest, but I know I’ve given her an internal compass that will always point her home.  Actually, I gave all 3 of my kids a small box for their graduation from high school that contained among other symbolic items, a compass that would always point them home.  When I was typing the letter that went into the box for Emery, just as I had done for her brothers, I envisioned her home as always being where I was and where she had come from, as that was the only reference I knew at the time.  Now I realize that the compass, although orientated to “home,” was now pointing her to the mountains of Colorado, where she has found her next home with her husband, Miles.  Still, she will always carry with her the internal compass that will always point her home – whether that’s to an actual physical location or to a feeling she carries in her heart.

My heart has stretched, yet again, across the 657 mile stretch of I-70 from Leawood, Kansas to Ft. Collins, Colorado, and although I can’t say I don’t feel sad at times, I’m with a very full heart that knows that although as parents we strive to give our children both wings and roots, it is in their flying that they will truly learn about life. As you fly, Emery, I learn, and in the process, we both grow.

Wings that took us to Perú…wings that would later take you there again…without me.

And to you,  Emery, you will not have an easier house guest.  I know where everything in your kitchen is as I put it there.  Second drawer to the right of the stove for the orange-handled carrot peeler…

Being a Mom was something I always knew I wanted in my life, although I never thought of myself as maternal before having kids. I was the one when playing house that wanted to play teenagers on dates with guys in convertibles, not mommies holding their crying babies.  When my first was born, anxious to show him off to one of my sisters when she came to the hospital, it took me three tries of pointing through the nursery window before I located the baby who I had actually birthed.  I was devastated.  Maternal, in what I thought maternal was, hadn’t magically appeared with childbirth for me.  I didn’t even know which baby in the rows of pink and blue swaddles was even mine.  I was post C-section, pumped up on morphine, so will blame the drugs.  But still….

It didn’t take me long, once home, to begin to understand what maternal instincts were and feel their presence in everything I did.  A couple became a family and a me became a we and it felt like it had been like that forever.  During the first few nights at home, I woke up far more than the baby did, simply to check to see if he was still breathing.  I know I’m not the only Mom who has stood over a bassinet in the middle of the night with her hand hovering a few inches over her baby’s mouth for the reassurance of the small warm puffs of life.

I wanted to be the best mom I could and between reading books about my child’s emotions, self-esteem, health, creativity and happiness, I sanitized, scrutinized, organized and sterilized every morsel of our 6 pound bundle of joy.  I wasn’t ready to believe that a dropped pacifier doesn’t have to be sterilized every time it hits the ground or that schedules don’t necessarily have to be adhered to.  I relied on the educated advice of others to get me through infancy (Dr. Spock included), as I didn’t yet have the confidence to veer off the path and do what felt right to me.

A short 18 months after my first was brought home from the hospital, we had a second son.  With two you get reality.  Parenting books, sanitized pacifiers (or sanitized anything for that matter) and rigid schedules all went out the window, along with expectations and sadly,  a few elements of my own personal hygiene.   Getting though the day with babies fed, no blood and some semblance of a dinner on the table at night was enough of a goal for me.  Thankfully, I had sisters who weren’t afraid to question me on my personal hygiene, reminding me that showering, shaving, and getting out of my jamies by dinner time would serve me well in the long run.  Still, in all the chaos of the non-perfection, non-scheduled, non-sterilized and very tired life, I felt gloriously maternal and totally in my element.

My oldest son, Thomas, in his brilliant curiosity, reminded me to slow down and simply look at things.  He questioned everything and when really pensive about something, he’d say:

“Let’s think about this till Saturday night, OK, Mom?”

We spent a lot of time stretched out on a blanket watching clouds drift by.  He called it our afternoon television.  I called it wonderful.

Slow down.  Look at things.  What’s the rush?

Thanks, Thomas.

This child, who was not even 2, during a frustrated moment I was feeling with his baby brother who had been crying nonstop for days it seemed, tapped me on the shoulder and with the innocence that can only come from a child, said:

“Just love him, Mama… just love him….”

Out of the mouths of babes…

Our second son, Grant, was my free-spirited, creative child from the get go. He taught me how to play again and through him, I tapped into my own magical and creative spirit.  Grant lived his life at full tilt and as a little boy, it shows in most of the photographs as he was usually sporting some sort of wound on his face from something that he never could exactly remember the how’s or the where’s behind it.

Grant was my kid who needed to be free… and as a toddler, hated wearing diapers in the summer while playing outside.  After a few rounds of trying to fix the situation with duct tape, I gave up and let him be free –  of diapers and tan lines.

I let go of the “supposed tos” and “shoulds” with Grant and when he decided that he wanted to wear plaid pants that were too little, swim shoes and a navy blue blazer to his preschool graduation, when all the other kids would be in shorts and tee shirts, how could I say no?

He took things apart, put things together, created from nothing and imagined everything.  He was observant to a tee and would comment on a new outfit, new recipe or if I had changed something in the house and with his observations came honesty….

“This doesn’t taste very good, Mom…”

Or the one that really caught me off guard was this, spoken at age 4:

“You’re pretty, Mom, but not a babe.”

“What do you mean by that, Grant?”

“Babes wear fancy dresses made of leopard.”

Was this from the Flintstones or a Victoria Secret catalog?  I opted on the former.

Have fun.  Make stuff and make stuff up.  Quit worrying about what anyone thinks.

Thanks, Grant.

When Emery was born, I wanted to  ride the brakes for as long as I could as I knew she was the last.  I dismissed the rules, threw out what little was left of the schedule and simply enjoyed being a mom.  For 5 years, short of taking her brothers to where they needed to be and keeping the family fed, I accomplished nothing while achieving everything.  I acted on whims and my gut and flew by the seat of my pants with her, which more than once had me calling her in sick to her mother’s day out/preschool program because we wanted to have an adventure instead, which always started with buying cinnamon rolls as big as our heads (we measured… kind of….)

Emery reminded me of the beauty of spontaneity and impulse decisions and that every once and a while cake for dinner and pizza for breakfast is A-OK and if you need to call popcorn a vegetable, then so be it. I broke all rules with her, including letting her sleep with me as an infant, but if that’s how I was going to get a good night’s sleep, then that’s how we were going to do it.

I slowed down to an almost stop with Emery… and it was deliciously wonderful to live life at the pace and the viewpoint of a little girl who twirled her way through life with a smile on her face and a song in her heart.  Her deep routed compassion for others, both of the 2-legged and 4-legged variety, touched me deeply… still does.

When we first took our new puppy to the veterinarian and he made an initial examination then left the room, she asked me why the vet was a man and I started to explain that it might have been the “woman vet’s” day off when she interrupted me with this:

“Why isn’t the Dr. a dog?  Wouldn’t a dog be able to understand our puppy better than we people could?”

I couldn’t do anything but smile.

Compassion.  Spontaneity.  Wear twirly skirts and dance.

Thank you, Emery.

Slowing down, having fun, finding our spontaneity… March, 1991

A mom once told me years ago that she wanted to be the kind of happy with her two boys that I was with my kids.  When I questioned her on it, she told me that she always watched me walking with my kids from the door of Thomas’ school to the car.  She said we looked so happy – a holding hands kind of happy.  I’ve thought about that a lot over the years.  Even though the hands were held tightly with an under my breath threat if they let go due to traffic, she was right.  I felt very happy all linked together with my kids.  I still do (although I’ve let go of my need to hold their hands in traffic, but still will stretch my arm out a la seat belt mode in a sudden car stop to protect my passenger, which more than likely is my purse or a bag of groceries these days…)

To all three of my kids, who as a new mom, I rubbed my hands in anticipation of being your teacher,  your guide, your mentor, your inspiration – you were the ones in the teacher role.  I’ve learned far more from the three of you than my maternal self ever thought possible.  Thank you from the bottom of my very full heart.

It’s been a banner year for this mom as I also got to claim the role of Mom in Law times two this year, a role that I hold dear to my heart, Brooke and Miles.  I get to gloss right over the sit up straight and eat your vegetables part and go straight to the simply enjoying part.  I love you both like my very own.

I once read that the decision to have a child is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body (Elizabeth Stone).  To all of the moms out there who have hearts walking around outside of them,  this is your day.  Wishing you all a very happy Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day, 1992

 

I wouldn’t normally think that a dream would make for good blog material, and maybe it doesn’t, but if I’m going to be honest with what’s been taking up residence in my mind lately, then I’ve got to post this and do so without thoughts of whether it is “good, appropriate, interesting or relevant enough.”
And so….

Two nights ago I dreamt I was sorting through piles of dolls and stuffed animals with Emery in the dining room of the house she grew up in. Dreams just love to plop you down in random places doing things that seem pretty irrelevant but after you wake up, hopefully with a rough sketch of who, what and where, I find that the puzzle pieces usually fit together quite nicely.  There was no doubt in my mind when I woke up as to why I needed to slowly sort through dolls and stuffed animals with my daughter.  It was exactly what I needed.

We were sitting in dining room chairs, in a room void of all else except the growing piles of the animals and dolls.  Emery would thoughtfully pick up each and every doll or stuffed animal and turn it over slowly while looking at it with such love that it seemed she might have actually birthed it.  I was coming from a place of more efficiency and less emotion, and wanted to speed up the process and start building piles.  The save pile was the only pile that was even a pile at all, as the other two, the trash pile and the give it away pile, were still just empty spots on the wood floor.  My daughter is a softy with a very big heart.

There was one doll that was about 18 inches tall with hair that had been both cut and washed, neither successfully, who had a broken eye, a missing arm and no clothes.  I might add that NONE of the dolls or animals were familiar to me and I seemed to be very aware of that in the dream, giving me pause as to why we were sorting out strange toys in the first place.  I quietly slid naked punk-haired baby to the spot on the floor for throw away… or give away… giving her the honor of starting which ever pile would be acceptable.

“We can’t give HER away Mommy… no one will love her like we do because we know her,” said the sweet, tiny voice next to me.

When I turned around to justify my decision, it was my 4 year-old Emery who was sitting next to me, in the dress with cowboys and horses on it that I had made her, red cowboy boots and striped leggings  that didn’t match… anything.  My sweet little 4 year-old Emery…right next to me…
I wanted more than anything to pull her up onto my lap and hug her and hold her and hug her some more,  but I didn’t because I was afraid if I tried to touch her, my hand would go right through her like a ghost and she might even disappear.

So for the remainder of the dream,  I got to sit with my little girl next to me and sort out piles of dollies and animals that although I had no attachment to,  I began to find a fondness for simply by seeing them through her eyes.  I knew that the task at hand would be a simple one and that the give away and throw away piles would remain empty spots on the floor because my assistant’s heart was bigger than the room and there would be no creature left behind.

One of the very strange and memorable elements of the dream was that I had control of the pace and can distinctly remember slowing it down to a crawl at one point simply for the luxury of getting to linger in memories that were so real I could touch them, feel them and even help lovingly stack them into piles – stuffed animals on one side and the dolls on the other.  No doubt at that point I had dipped into the realm of lucid dreaming, something I had accidentally taken an evening class on several years ago.  Yes, accidentally.  This was a much easier accident than when I enrolled in an Astronomy class my first semester at K-State and quickly figured out that I wasn’t going to learn a darn thing about Virgos and what sign they would have the most luck dating.  I was a very young freshman, barely 18, if that helps me out at all…

Anyway, back to dream classes…I thought I had enrolled in a one evening dream analysis class,  but instead I got a three hour run down on lucid dreaming, which ended up being better than what I had planned on.  I didn’t learn how to do it, per se, but now can easily recognize it when it happens, which is pretty darn cool, by the way…

The last text I had gotten from Emery before I fell into dreamland that night, was a photo of a cute little yellow house in Ft. Collins, CO – the house that she and Miles just had just signed a rental contract on during their quick weekend visit to house search.

She’s married.  She’s moving to Colorado.  She’s growing up.

I woke up feeling sentimental, sad, confused, yet with a very full heart. There was a part of me that needed to sit with 4 year-old Emery and be reminded that no matter how old she is, or how grown up the decisions she is making with Miles are, she will always have that loving little girl inside of her with a heart that’s as big and open as the Kansas sky.

While growing up and finding their wings is what I assume most parents hope and plan for their children, the process is clumsy and awkward with shoes that are too big and pants too long and then one day it all fits and they’re adults doing adult things and managing just fine, because that’s what we taught them.  It still  sometimes surprises me though.

How cool is it that from the comfort of my bed, life gave me the gift of a tip toe back to a place that I needed to be reminded of while helping me, once again, through the process of letting go – a process I hadn’t yet realized was taking place.  Somehow that pile of orphaned toys and the little girl sorting through them, gave me the message that everything was going to be OK.

And that was enough.