Happy Mother's Day

I'm having a happy Mother's Day... and yet. And yet. It's high summer, but I feel a hint of winter's chill. Time goes so fast. And it only goes in one direction.

Young'un will be graduating in three weeks. Yes, it's from eighth grade, not high school, but it's still a big transition for me. For me. It will also be a dress rehearsal, a warning shot across the bow, for the big graduation. I've got four years to prepare for it... but will that be enough?

Yes, of course I've gone through this before. Firstborn graduated from eighth grade and then from high school, and moved to Chicago, and to the other side of the world. It affected me deeply; my very screen name is testimony to that. For anyone who doesn't know, I first went online right around the time Firstborn was preparing to move out. I was feeling very much like a mama bird whose baby was leaving the nest, and that's what I named myself.

But my nest wasn't empty; I still had Young'un. I was still a busy, day-to-day mom. Though I had tears in my eyes as I watched the truck bearing Firstborn and his possessions drive away, I could also high-five with Husband and exclaim triumphantly, "Got one raised!"

When the one leaving is the last, and the nest is truly empty, I'm not sure I'll handle it so well. It will be a situation unknown to me since the fall of 1979. I'll still be a mom, but without the day-to-day momness that I'm so accustomed to. Children keep you young. When I no longer have young children, will I no longer be young? Oh, I know I'm not young now, but you know what I mean. Will I no longer be adaptable, adventurous, excited to take on each day?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled right down to my socks that Firstborn is out in the world making his way with confidence and strength. That's the goal of raising a child; it's why we're children for so few years and adults for so many. My deepest wish for Young'un is that he too will fly away on powerful wings and ride the high currents. That's how I'll know I did it right. When both my children are strong and able, out in the world, then I can rest easy.

I can't even complain that I didn't appreciate the "little kid" years while they were going on; that life happened to me while I was busy making other plans. I did; it didn't. I've known that now is the only time we have to appreciate now, ever since a defining moment on the back porch of my house when I was about 5 or 6, when I told my mother that I'd rather not come in just yet because this was the only time I'd ever be able to see the sunlight looking orange on the trunks of those trees across the alley in just that way. I call myself "fourth-dimensional" in that I'm always conscious of the passing of time and the changes it has made and will make. I've not taken anything for granted... and yet it hasn't been enough; it could never be enough. Years ago in my journal I wrote of my tendency to "rage and rattle the bars of the cage called time." I'm still raging and rattling.

However, since I have savored every moment, and continue to do so, I really can't complain. I've gotten the best that Time has to offer. By being ever conscious of each day's transience, I've imprinted them all in my memory -- even the ones that were unpleasant, or boring, or sad. I own them all, as much as it's possible for any human to own his or her days.

And now that I've thought all this out by writing it -- much as I used to think things out by talking on the phone with my mother -- I realize that it's all right. As long as my children need me I'll be there for them, and I'll be me for them. And I'll be me for myself.

Happy Mother's Day.