Tag: child going to college

Who He Is To Me

We will be dropping my youngest son off at college tomorrow. I’ve written before that he is ready to move on and I am prepared. Having been through this twice before, makes it both easier and harder, all because I know what to expect. We’ll adjust.

We are going to have lunch today, just the two of us. That is a rare thing in a family of six. Children, even almost adult children, relish that undivided attention that one-on-one time with a parent gives to them. My son will be cracking jokes or saying things to get my goat. He’s the child who often heard me say, “Please stop being so inflammatory.” His teachers were always impressed that he knew a big word like “inflammatory.”

The funny thing is, my son will think that I will be listening to him, and I will be, to an extent. But I will be less intent on what he is saying and more intent in just savoring the whole essence of him – his familiar mannerisms, his quirky slang, his intense blue eyes. I read once that when you look at your child, you see every version of him or her, all at once. So when I am gazing intently at my youngest son today, I’ll see that round headed, easy-going baby who would pop his head up, just when I was convinced that I had gotten him to sleep. I’ll see that rough and tumble toddler with such a raspy voice that people told me he should be a radio announcer, when he was about three. I’ll see that little guy, who I peered at in the rear view mirror, as I took him to preschool, who talked and talked, making it easy for me to just rest and nod. I’ll see the young boy who was so tough on the football field and the basketball courts, yet so full of intense, righteous feeling, that he could never convincingly lie to anyone. I’ll see the skinny adolescent, always trying to keep up with his older brothers, yet eager to carve his own unique, impressive path. And all of those images will be encased in the handsome, earnest young man across from me at lunch, the young man with a broad shouldered 6’2″ frame, who will be making edgy remarks to get me off balance, all in playful good fun. I will savor him. I will be grateful for him. And I will swallow my tears before they show, because deep down, I know that we both are going to be just fine. We will have lunch together again, just the two of us, and the next time that we have lunch together, there will be a whole new interesting persona for me to get to know, added to all of the wonderful rest of them, that make up who my son is, to me.

Loosening of A Strand

I’m at my third child’s freshman orientation for college. So obviously, this is not my first rodeo. In fact, he is attending the same large, wonderful university that his two elder brothers attended, so this is really not my first rodeo. In some ways, I feel comforted. I know what to expect in many regards. I know that while our relationship will definitely change, he won’t disappear on me. In some ways, our relationship will mature and ripen in wonderful ways, with a mutual adult respect and a curiosity to get to know each other on a more personal, level playing field. We’ll discover things about each other, that for years was kept under the wraps of more parental guidance and authority, than he will need now.

Still, every child is unique. Anyone who believes that a child is a “blank slate” doesn’t have multiple children or is too blind to see the swirling, beautiful, utterly unique energy and soul, that is encapsulated in the body of each and every child. That soul just needs to be nurtured, loved and coached out – certainly not painted over with forced, blind, uniform expectations. And because every child is unique, every relationship that you have with each of your children, is unique and special and sacred.

I have raised four children. I carry four strands. And today marks the day that I have to let go of my tight grip on one of my unique, beautiful strands. I have to loosen the string and let it wind out to new directions, directions that will no longer be in my control. I have enough experience in this territory now, to not fear the loosening so much. In fact, I’m excited to follow the strand from time to time, to see where it is going, now, almost entirely in the care of my wonderful, capable son’s direction.

What Do You Say?

We have a phrase in our family that we have said for over a decade.  Whenever one of us talks about fun upcoming plans, or an interesting day, in our perkiest sing-songiest voices, with our heads rocking back and forth we say, “That’s cool!  That’s fun!”

That much-used family phrase came about from an encounter on a school bus that my middle two sons had with a cute little girl who asked them if they were twins and they said, “No, we’re just brothers.”

“That’s cool!  That’s fun!” she replied as she hung over the top of her seat on the bus trying to make new friends for the school year.  That was the first reported story of that particular school year and that particular phrase has “stuck” in our family for all of these years.  I imagine most families and people have borrowed phrases that become part of their history, their vernacular, their being.

My friend would always say, “Dammit, Jim,” in her best “Dr. McCoy from Star Trek” voice whenever something annoying would happen.  Although I have never been a Star Trek fan, I decided to mimic it until I owned it because it helped me to keep my potty mouth at a respectable level.  Recently my daughter, who has probably never seen Star Trek, asked me about this quirky habit of mine and she said, “Who’s Jim?”

“No worries!” is another one I copied.  Some kindly man said that to me probably two decades ago and it made me feel so good, I decided it had to be part of my vocabulary to pass along.  My husband likes to quote from movies.  He has held on to Billy Bob Thorton’s, “Some folks call it a slingblade . . . ” for a long, long time only because I think he likes to do that deep guttural “Mmmmm-hmmmm” at the end of the quote.

I could go on and on and I’m sure everyone else can do the same with their family’s phraseology.  It’s the things like these that make a person or a family, so uniquely them; a part of them that makes them so divinely special and different from the crowd.   It’s the little things, like shared phrases and nicknames that make us feel connected to our loved ones.

When my eldest son first headed to college, my daughter and I couldn’t stop crying.  In a misguided emotional moment, I told her that we should think of all of the things that annoy us about him so that we wouldn’t feel so bad and miss him so much.  That was a fail.  It just made us sob harder, because when you focus on all of the attributes of a person, you are understanding every little detail of what makes that person so alive to you and you are realizing how well you know and love that person.

At this middle age stage of our lives, it is almost certain that we have all gone through the very painful experience of losing people whom we love.  It is in those dark moments of loss, that in wanting to save a clear memory of that person, that we think of all of the little details, quirks and nuances that made that particular loved one who they were to us and who they were to the world.  It’s rarely the big things that serve as a reminder of the essence of a person or a family or a group of friends, but a mixture of all of the special little moments, looks, laughs, habits, scents, ways of moving, ways of speaking, inside jokes and understandings, etc. that bring a smile of recognition and joy to our hearts.

What are some phrases that are part of you?  Where did they come from?  What’s the story behind them?  These are just some of the ways “you are being you” in the world and someone or many someones, are noticing that and treasuring that about you.