It’s Not About You, Momma

I don’t write much about my adult children because, well… they’re adults. They deserve a certain modicum of privacy and space. That transition is tough to make, trust me. Going from having a person literally clinging to your body 24/7 to requesting permission from that same said person to include their photograph in your blog is surreal… even if that process did take 23 years.

The route of that separation is slow and bumpy and difficult and heartbreaking. It’s also a warp-speed, beautiful thing that leaves you breathless. How it can be all of those things at once I can’t explain. But when you get there, you’ll know. Trust me.

This past weekend, we celebrated our oldest sons’ 18th and 20th birthdays, and Mary Hannah was able to make a quick visit home. She’s only been gone a few weeks, but her surprise arrival incited a near riot of excitement. We had cheesecake, and coconut cream pie, and sang, and otherwise celebrated en masse.

Then, Sunday afternoon, the three young adults slipped off and went out for their own private celebration. Without us.

And that was the moment I knew I’d accomplished one of my heart’s goals in raising a family: they went off alone, to enjoy their relationship, their traditions, their moment. And they didn’t need or want me to make it happen.

Actually, it had nothing to do with me at all. (I’d wager that it was made better by my absence, to be honest.)

This is the part where that slow, awful, amazing separation bears fruit: my children don’t need me to be their glue. They’ve tied themselves together even as they were picking at the knots that held them closest to me. Through fights and laughter and favorite movies and scary storms and rolling snowballs and walking the dog in the rain and keeping each other’s secrets, they’ve forged a bond with one another that holds firm despite distance, despite differences, and despite obstacles.

We mothers can only see with the eyes God has given us. And from our perspective, well, the family can’t exist without us. No, I’m not saying that we purposefully create thrones for our own egos, orchestrating daily life and major holidays at our feet. But what we are tempted to do can be just as damaging. In thinking that without us, it all falls apart, we cajole. We nudge. We schedule. We suggest. We insert ourselves into every detail. We leave nothing to chance. And soon enough, the family does require us to set it in motion. No one steps up to offer to make a birthday cake for a sister because it might not be the one Mom has planned. No one asks to host a holiday dinner because it might fall short. Nothing organic happens between siblings, because there’s too little there to build on that doesn’t require Mom to push it along. The mother has become the family’s heart, its soul, and its conscience. In worrying that the relationships won’t be formed and that the joyous occasions won’t be celebrated, we mothers can actually ensure that this is the case.

A family is the sum of all of its parts. It shouldn’t rest on one member alone. This is why when God chooses to take someone from the fold of their loved ones, the remaining members can and should be able to go on. Differently, of course. But forward, nontheless. Together. With a piece missing, but the heartbeat of the whole still intact. What happens to a family built only on the foundation of a mother’s efforts? It implodes when she’s gone. Period.

By the same token, what happens to sibling relationships when the mother who has acted as the glue isn’t there to press the pieces together? They fracture, only intersecting again at prescribed group gatherings or during occasional, awkward check-ins.

And that, my friends, is the antithesis of what we mothers want our legacy to be.

I always prayed that my children would take vacations without me, or travel long distances to mark a milestone birthday for one of their own, or be able to sit down when they’re 50 and not just laugh over the things that happened when they were 12, but also about the many, many things they’d shared in between. I had no idea how to make that happen, or any roadmap to follow. So I did the only thing that seemed to make sense: I got out of the way.

Ultimately, that’s the bulk of mothering, isn’t it?

Getting out of the way.
Letting what will come, come.
Allowing things to hurt.
Allowing things to heal.
Allowing space for the good, the beautiful, the glorious.
Giving time for all of that to be knit together into a relationship that will stand—or fall— on its own merits.

We don’t control the outcome, or the course. It’s messy, and it might just mean a paltry showing at someone’s soccer game, or maybe it means years of wondering if these two particular kids will survive one another. But it’s real. It’s an outflowing from the heart. And you might just be shocked years down the road.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know exactly what my adult kids did as they celebrated the birthdays of the two boys. I know they picked up food at Salsarita’s and took it to a park. I think a trip to their favorite board game store was involved. But it wasn’t about me, so I didn’t pry. That afternoon belongs to them, as it should. But I dearly pray this was the first of many such “just for them” celebrations, and that they make the time and space to repeat this day— or one like it— for the rest of their lives. I pray that they impress upon their younger siblings (who watched them pack up with that “someday it will be me!” shine in their eyes) the value of these precious times, and eventually fold them in, too.

This season of mothering young adults has so much loss as I surrender my children to the lives and call God has for them. But it has so many blessings as well. Watching this new blossoming of their relationships is one of them, and I cherish it with all my heart.