Hello
This is the season of goodbyes. Last night Molly and Kelly went to their respective going away parties. Molly went to say goodbye to Jonathan who was going back for his senior year in college; Kelly was saying arrivederci to Taylor who would be going for her first year in college. I think Molly feels this is all part of life, and that next summer she’ll see Jonathan again. “No biggie, Mom.” For Kelly, since this is her first experience with saying goodbye to friends going off to school and she’s staying home for college, there is more uncertainty, maybe more sadness. I feel for her. Over the last month as kids are going back to school, Kelly’s friends who were juniors last year and now seniors in high school, Kelly is feeling the loss of not being a child anymore. I know this loss. Molly and Kelly have both now graduated from high school, no longer little girls.
By now you probably realize I have an issue with goodbyes. For the love of Pete, I wrote a whole memoir about Molly leaving for college three years ago. To say I was wrecked Molly was moving six hundred miles away from home, from me, is an understatement. After writing the memoir, I realize the reasons I felt abandoned. We had a strong bond and by Molly moving away I felt that bond would no longer be. Out of sight, out of mind. I felt our relationship would be forever altered and she would no longer need me.
Molly will be moving out again to go to college. She’s been home for a year and half. When she moved back home, she slipped right back into the fold. I became her mother again, cooking for her and the family, sitting across the table and hearing about her day. When she moves, I will miss her smell of the beach, clean hair and men’s deodorant. I will miss her, “Ah, Maws.” I will miss seeing her smiling face and even her grumpy one.
I’m learning to accept change. I have learned to say goodbye. There have been some wonderful teachers. Rhonda’s mom, Chucky, had such grace in her acceptance of dying from cancer. She was filled with such spirit and peace. Chucky made every one, including me, feel that her passing wasn’t goodbye but until we meet again.
I may be getting better at goodbyes, but I’ll leave you with “Hello.”
How do you let go?
Goodbyes are tough. I’ve had plenty, and I don’t have any good answers. I think our goodbyes with our children, letting them go, knowing we can’t be there to protect them – those are the hardest.
I’ve been dealing with those goodbyes this past year. I’ve done better than I thought I would, but it ain’t easy. And more to come.
How lovely that your daughter could slip right back into the household and your relationship, just as before.
Wow, you really put goodbyes in perspective when you mention someone’s mother dying, huh? I got nothing…
I’m no expert here. Or rather I think I could really do well with the gigantic things like your mother in law passing away because of faith and all that, yet I was an absolute wreck when my kids went off to camp last summer. Yet I say that while knowing that my mother’s not going to last forever and I’ll probably be a total wreck when that horrible thing happens. So say goodbye? Eh.