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Shot Through the Heart … But Healing!

October 2, 2006 | by Admin2 | No Comments

by Mary Wills | submitted on October 2, 2006

I am the very proud Mother of one wonderful child – my son, Zach. We’ve been on our own for 12 of his 21 years on the planet. I had not thought his leaving home for college would be THAT difficult. After all, my friends said “you’ll be glad when he’s gone” “when he comes home for holidays, you’ll count the days until he leaves!” I don’t know if I just have not reached that stage yet (he’s been gone 6 weeks) or if their memories are failing them. What I DO know is this is very, very hard. I don’t fully know who I am if I am not his hands’ on Mom. I am not sure what my “Mom duties” are now, as the following illustrates.

As a young child, whenever my son was sick enough to miss school, I stayed home from work to take care of him. I’d tuck him in, bring him anything he needed/wanted, take his temperature a hundred times a day, sit with him, read to him, etc. Of course, I no longer did all of those things once he was older, but he still needed me. Up until two months ago, if he was ill, he would struggle to raise his head from the pillow I had so tenderly plumped up repeatedly and croak out the words “M-o-m, can I have some T-y-l-e-n-o-l p-l-e-e-e-e-a-s-e?” This was said barely above a whisper so that I got the message that he was really sick (he learned this from his Father). If I did not hear this plea because he was TOO weak to speak up (NOT) he would use his cell phone to call me in the next room! Okay, so this does sound extreme, but he’s such an independent kid, it was one of the few times I really felt needed..

Well, that’s come to a screeching halt! He’s a Junior at University and living with his girlfriend, Melissa, and a guy pal. Two weeks ago Zach called home sounding terrible. All stuffy, coughing, sneezing (probably inhaling pepper for effect) and wheezing. My immediate response was to grab my car keys, slip on shoes and head for the door. I would bring my boy (21 years old, 6’3″) what he needed; neither sleet, nor snow, nor distance would stop me. As I vaulted down the stairs two by two I was shouting the words “What do you need honey? I am on my way there.” It was then he uttered the six most awful, gut-wrenching words I’ve heard him say (thus far). He said “MELISSA IS TAKING CARE OF ME.” SHOT through the heart! WHAT did he just say to ME? Melissa is taking care of him? Melissa IS TAKING CARE OF HIM?? Don’t they know that’s MY JOB? I stopped dead in my tracks and managed to say “Oh, that’s great honey, call me when you’re feeling better.” I slumped to the floor and cried and realized Melissa is quite capable of caring for a case of the sniffles..

Some days I feel like a ship without a rudder; other days I feel happy and every day I am proud of him. Almost every day I wonder “What will I do with the rest of my life?” It’s exciting, while scary at the same time. Zach must have ambivalence as well. We’ll both make it through, I am sure. It’s the ups and downs that get ya, which reminds me of the many afternoons we spent at the park on his favorite ride, the see-saw, up and down, up and down … Maybe it’s not all that different, he’s still on one end of the see-saw while I am on the other,as we both work diligently to find that delicate balance. Hopefully, it can still be fun too!.

– Mary Wills

Stay Away from the Edge, or How Empty Nest Syndrome Kicked My Butt

September 1, 2006 | by Admin2 | No Comments

by Joan Gelfand | submitted on September 8, 2006

Empty nest? Who me? I’m hip, I’m cool, and I’m busy! I never worried, never anticipated the moment until my first sad ‘moment’ last year when I took my daughter on her college tour. I kept the writer’s eye on this by starting my blog, “Emptying the Nest – (http://typepad.com/ciel) When I mentioned the dread my feelings to my women friends, all of them gave me the same line: “You won’t even know she’s gone! You? You’re so busy!” As a result, I figured that empty nest syndrome was for those ‘other’ moms – the ones that had never had a career, those moms that didn’t have a passion for anything other than their children.

So it was quite a shock when the grief came out of left field and hit me hard. It was kind of like taking a left turn with your signal on and the road clear, but out of nowhere, SMACK – your fender, or door, or worse – is shattered. As the date for Simone’s departure grew near, I cried. Not once, as I expected, but every day. I cried in bed at night, worrying – would she be warm enough? Lonely? Who will watch out for her? Will she have friends? A boyfriend? Then I cried when I woke up in the morning! Every room brought up things I was sad about – her bedroom for the safe aspect of our home. The kitchen for all the happy, peaceful and fun times we’d spent, and for our little, private routine; when Simone came home from soccer (starving of course!) she would sit at the counter in the kitchen reading a fashion magazine while I put dinner together. Intermittently, we would talk about the day, or, often, not talk. In her senior last year she was baking for a fundraising program “Bake for Lives” and once a week we’d bake cookies, brownies or cupcake s – with Simone meticulously attending to the frosting. Toward the last few weeks it seemed I was crying all the time – in the house, in the car, and especially during phone calls with my mother! As Sharon Olds writes in her poem, “High School Senior,” “I say ‘college’ but I feel as if I cannot tell/the difference between her leaving for/college/and our parting forever.”

Busy or not busy, I was grieving. And what I learned was that grief does strange things. Many years of therapy had helped me to come to terms with the loss of my father and the deep abandonment issues that were getting in the way of my relationships – I had trust issues, dependency issues, independence issues, and control issues. About a week before Simone was due to leave I had lunch with two good friends. Nancy had tragically lost her son in a car crash during his second year at Oberlin. The last time I’d seen her was at his memorial service. I was mentally prepared to listen, and be supportive. When the subject turned to our kids, and college (all three of us had kids leaving home) I started crying, almost uncontrollably. And it was Nancy, who said something very astute. With complete composure, she looked me right in the eye: “You know, one loss brings up the other. Your father left, but he didn’t come back. Simone’s just going to college – she’s coming back! ” I understood that she was implying that my grief wasn’t just about Simone, but I wasn’t ready to hear it – I was sure that I had “worked out” all that ‘stuff’ about my father years before.

The first night after I left Simone at school I had a dream about the day that my father died – forty years ago! The grief in the dream was deep and real. But in the very next scene I was pulling old, dusty curtains away from a tall window. In the morning, the way I interpreted the dream was this: leaving my daughter in that unfamiliar environment wit h all my anxieties (coupled with her own anxieties) had triggered the day that changed me irrevocably years ago.

There are days that change your life, and then there is trauma. And, it is also true that the heart does heal. In that next scene – where I pulled open the dusty old curtains, I felt that the message from my subconscious was: If I can just see what’s happening in this moment, a new day is dawning, the curtains are being drawn back, and the window to my life is opening and the sun is pouring in.

How Did this Happen So Quickly That Their Beds Are Made

August 1, 2006 | by Admin2 | No Comments

by Anonymous | submitted on August 1, 2006

How did this happen so quickly that their beds are made, the refrigerator has no chocolate milk or Gatorade bottles, and the kitchen sink is empty? I have no lost socks, no basketball or soccer schedules on the refrigerator and no wet towels in the den.

I am empty of children. I guess I am in the empty nest syndrome because I feel down, tearful and don’t even say it, because it is not my hormones, so forget offering me milk, bringing flowers, and I’m so nervous… I miss my daughter and my son. One left last year and the other leaped out this month. Two college kids, and when I say that I feel old.

I am a young 50ish woman who still can dive and surface with rainbow colors.

I get up in this sweaty summer house and hear my footsteps landing on the dusty wooden floors. Face down, feet heavy, I remember, “there’s the deep scratch Ben imprinted with his black three-wheeler when over and over I said, “No riding in the house. You will scratch the floors.” Now I smile and am glad to see that marking.

Nancy has invisible markings of words on the walls, floors and ceilings I wish I had had an eraser when she loudly and constantly was on the blue phone with her life.

Now the house is so silent, I would welcome hearing myself say, “keep it down, close your door, I’m having my own conversation and all I hear is yours.”

Gee, do I only remember the discipline part of me. No, I am the good mother too, who baked the chocolate cupcakes for birthday parties, , manned the school fair ring toss booth, sat on their beds as they flew around the room buzzing about their friends and what to wear tonight.

I wonder who they are sitting with in the dorm. Are they getting dressed for a party or have nothing to do?

I guess I should think about me. What am I going to do tonight? My husband is at a business conference. There I go thinking about us. I can do something without the “us”.

But what? I get lazy about going out at night when he is gone. I could plan ahead and have dinner with a friend, but, but, but. Honestly, I am not lazy so that’s not it. I just feel flat. I don’t want to do anything, but watch TV in my XXXL faded green t- tank top that if my daughter saw, she would say,” You always wear your clothes too baggy, mom”

Signed:

“Mom missing her grown up kids.”