A Mother's day
May 16, 2014
As a child, Whenever I thought of my future, I knew that it involved being married, having a romantic old house, and having kids. I would write and sew in my little sewing room under the eaves and the kids would run in and out of the house, bringing treasures of rocks and pinecones and bugs to share and line up on the windowsill. They would take old tea cups and fill it with mud and water and invite me to sit under the huge maple tree and have some tea with acorn candies. They would pester me for popsicles, for walks, for friends over, for bowls of cereal and toast, for stories, for baking cookies, for helping to make Lego Ferris wheels, for playing dress up and putting on lipstick, and pieces of stale bread to use as "bait" to fish off the footbridge behind the church.
I knew there would be many, many sleepovers, with prepubescent girls shrieking around the house at 2:00 a.m. with cans of whipped cream; intense fort building behind the guest house by grade school boys; sledding down the giant gun club hill by the lake; tent camping in the heat of a Southern summer in the backyard; swimming with the pool lights on and the shrieking because of the bats; and spending endless hours playing Candyland and making flat little cakes in EZ Bake Ovens.
I knew that they would have solemn, slightly scared faces when they donned white veils and blue blazers to walk down the aisle to receive First Communion; I knew a baby cry all through Thanksgiving until I realized the baby was sick; I knew they'd sneak down the big staircase after we went to bed on Christmas Eve and count the 3 piles of gifts to make sure they were even; I knew they would have want their father to read before bed and I'd find them all asleep, a book splayed against their chests;
I knew there would be punishments and school problems and "unsuitable" boyfriends; there would be teasing and crying and fighting and tears; emergency room visits and throw up all over our brand new car; i knew there'd be fights with friends and lying about things done wrong; I knew there'd be anger about moving and new schools so many times and homesickness for their cousins; I knew there'd be disastrous boy scout camps and hot as blazes music camps in June; as well as evenings so cold the 8th grade graduates would turn blue in the pool and sit around the kitchen table in towels with wet hair; and I knew that there would be a night when we sat in our car across the street and watched another family look at our house, going room to room and inspecting our things, and we had nowhere to go but sit and wait until the realtor led them out.
I knew they'd take my breath away in gowns and tuxes for prom; make my eyes sting in caps and gowns and grow giddy when they brought home diamond rings. Wedding gowns and moving vans and baby strollers and faces I would no longer get to kiss each night.
I knew that they would grow up, go away to school, find work, careers, meet significant others, marry or not, have children or not, move away, maybe come back, help us with chores like installing cabinets that our old muscles and bones could no longer do. And I knew when their grandmothers passed away, we would all cry until the muscles in our cheeks hurt so much that we used ice packs to go to sleep.
I knew all these things.
What I did not know was that the cycle of the generations would nudge me ahead before I was ready to make the next turn around the wheel. I did not realize that the continuum begins to narrow and grow steeper and then it would be a free slide like the last hill of the Dragon Coaster.
This weekend we are going to our youngest child's graduation. Known here as "Micalangela", most friends understand the play on words since she was an artist and she attended MICA - Maryland Institute College of Art. She fell in love with the school at a precollege program, applied for early admittance, and never looked back.
The night before she left for college, I had to hide in the guest room because I was crying so much that I would scare her and embarrass her in front of her friends.
The 4 years have flown by with twists and turns and ups and downs. I am used to her being away. I miss her. I know from hereon in, she will mostly always be away.
My little last baby, the one who wore a denim jacket with a black velvet collar and a heart pin everyday of nursery school, is graduating with a BFA and continuing at MICA in the graduate school for a Masters in of Teaching in Art. We could not be more proud.
I am wishing the hours away until we are there and are walking through Brown, the building where all the senior projects of the art students from all disciplines are on display. Julia says the art is AMAZING.
I just know that she is, too.