Yesterday I
glimpsed a moment from my future.
My daughter
and her team had just lost the semi-final game of their softball tournament,
and before we started out for the one-hour drive home, she and I stopped for a
cold drink. I had to smile as her 5-foot-1-inch frame disappeared through the
doors of the convenience store, sweaty and covered with dirt from a stolen
base.
While I
waited for her I killed time reading texts, checking voicemail, previewing the
weather, cleaning out my bag. Still no
Sam. I watched as three people exited, feeling disappointment each time I
didn’t see her. I was anxious to get on the road. And then it hit me.
My daughter
and I are on the cusp of something completely foreign to us and to what we know
as a family.
For just shy
of eighteen years, any separation we’ve experienced has not been for more than
a couple of days. And when we are apart, she is a stone’s throw away. Any long
distance trips we have made by car or plane have been together, and now more so
in this moment that any other, I was grateful for never having to learn to deal
with true separation.
But the
reality of the future came crashing in on me as I pictured where we might be in
just a few months, post graduation. Perched
upright now in the driver’s seat, eyes peeled on the front door, I played a
game with myself. I pretended I hadn’t
seen her for weeks. I imagined a variety of scenarios that could likely happen
in the next chapter of our lives. Most
painful, I envisioned she was returning for a visit from college or coming home
from boot camp, and I was waiting for her to walk through those doors to come
home to me. The idea of either scenario thrilled
me as I simultaneously broke into a cold sweat.
The thought
that someday this was what the future held for me, for us, took my breath away.
It’s inevitability causes my heart to ache with its bitter-sweetness. The sweet
being her future, wide open and loaded with possibilities. Knowing who she is and what she’s capable of
feeds my prediction that good things are about to happen for her. But the
bitter is knowing that our time together, as we know it as mother and child, is
almost at its end.
When I saw
her finally come through those glass doors with her drink, I felt it. I
practiced feeling what I will feel to see her after an absence for the rest of
my life once she leaves me. When her need for me in my current role comes to
its natural end and becomes something else. I practiced seeing her as if she
were returning to me, and in this fantasy I conjured, the mere sight of her
filled my heart to the bursting point with such intense love and lightness.
I wonder how
I will not come apart when we’re apart? Apart.
What an ugly word.
But I didn’t
want to dwell on that thought, so I chastised myself with a swift reminder that
I gave birth to her to give her life, a future. I raised her to go out into the
world, to be happy and successful. Or at
least I hope I have.
And the
inevitable hasn’t happened yet. I have time to enjoy her almost constant company a little
longer. She probably doesn’t think so, but I still have so many things to teach
her.
I have
months with her until she leaves me, or doesn’t after all. The date of our separation
will be determined when her plans are set. And when it’s needed, I’ll help her
cope with the goodbyes.
I know about goodbyes.
Sixteen years ago this very week, my husband and I packed up our belongings
and daughter for a new start, the second time I left home for new
adventures. And my entire family and I now
experience being truly apart. Twenty-three hundred miles across the country may
as well be twenty-three million. It’s
meant learning to stay connected despite distance and appreciating every
precious moment we do have together.
My
daughter’s day to pack may be sooner than I’d like to acknowledge. But with a
little luck and a lot of love, we’ll never feel apart, but “a part” of each
others lives. Always.
