So this is my question:
Why in Heaven’s name did they not warn me how awful it is?!
Now, I’m well aware that this is all part of the plan. I already know that it’s awesome that he’s going to college and that he’s made some pretty good decisions in his life and that I should be relishing in the fact that he sure seems to be ready.
And believe me, I am so grateful for all of the above. This is what we’ve been working all these years to help him get ready for.
But all those rational reasons for a child to leave his mother seem a little bit like gibberish when you’re in the middle of sending that child off.
One of my favorite motherhood quotes is this:
“Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
--Elizabeth Stone
It has spoken so true to me with each of my five babies. From the moment I caught the first glimpse of their tiny purple bodies and heard their first melodic cries (newborn baby cries are one of the most melodic thing in the world in my opinion), it was as if a piece of my heart was ripped out for them…that mother’s love is so deep and indescribable.
But never has that quote had quite so much meaning as it has the last few weeks as I got my only boy ready to move away from me and take such a huge chunk of my heart right along with him.
Now, this may sound dramatic, (and I’ve realized over the last few weeks and months that I’m much more dramatic than I took myself to be), but I’m here to tell you that it IS dramatic to let your child leave your nest.
There is part of me that thinks it is a very cruel thing to let a mother raise a child for eighteen years, reveling in his successes, mourning at his mistakes, praying her guts out that he’ll make the right choices, cutting toenails, kissing away scrapes and bruises, teaching him how to spell, how to problem-solve, how to obey and to love…and then uproot that child she has poured her soul into and ship him off to college.
It is awful I tell you.
But I know, deep down, there is another part of me that will {eventually} make my heart soar as I revel in the wonder of sending him off, his eyes wide open into the big wide world, and feeling confident that he is ready.
For the last few weeks it has been kind of a battle in my soul…the happy part, sharing in his sheer excitement one minute, and the sad part, wallowing in the depths of despair the next. My poor husband and family have put up with me quite nicely I must say. (Thanks guys!) I found myself blubbering about the dumbest things. Doing the dishes, getting a text asking about when Max was leaving from a friend, eating a hamburger…you name it, everything had some kind of relation to Max.
And that kid of mine was leaving.
One day when his disastrous bedroom caught my eye for the um-teenth time I got stomping mad at that kid.
(This is actually very mild compared to all the times I forgot to snap a picture…)
Sure he had to go to work at 5:30 in the morning and yes, that’s early. But can he not hang up a towel after eighteen years for Pete’s sake? Can he not put his discarded contact cases in the trash can approximately 18-inches away? Must he leave laundry all over the floor when he has a perfectly good laundry basket sitting there in the corner? I swear I have taught him better than that. Haven’t all those weeks of Saturday jobs done anything to help?
I started daydreaming about the day when I would get that bedroom back. Oh how it would sparkle! Oh how fresh it would smell!
Yes, I was ready.
…until I caught a quick glimpse of some of the pots he made in his clay class at school…
…and noted the volleyball awards gathering dust on his desk and that did it:I was bawling once again. (Have I mentioned that I have been a little crazy this last little while? Oh boy.)
How could I ever let him leave? If given the choice I’d take his stinky towels strewn in bunches across the floor and a million empty contact cases lying around just to have him just stay little.
Just a little longer!
He’s all grown up, this boy of ours. He graduated from high school (loved this card he got from one of my friends):
And he has become a man who has worked so hard all summer long and came home like this:
…and this:
(Dave and I could hardly help ourselves from taking pictures of him when he got home from work…the pictures don’t even do justice to how dirty he got.)
He has been a good leader at church and became an Elder last Sunday.
He has worked on grades, on friendships, on how he wants to live his life, on being a leader, and yes, even on cleaning his darn room for so many years and at some point you just have to let them go, gosh dang it!
So we ate up those last few days together. We snuggled him up his last Sunday at home.
(with completely fake smiles up there)
He took his sister out to lunch on a special date (she thought it was the best thing in the world).
He got his wisdom teeth out in preparation for his upcoming mission…
…and then proceeded to go to the first season high school football game that very night.
(In case you were wondering…like I was…you cannot miss the only football game of the season you are going to be home for, despite your wisdom teeth being ripped out of your mouth that morning. Everyone knows that I guess. Duh.)
Along with wisdom teeth, we had doctor and dentist appointments to get his mission papers ready.
And then we turned those suckers in…
…with a mission reporting date availability of December 18th.
Yes, you heard that right…he let them know he’ll be ready to leave BEFORE Christmas.
I tried to talk him into waiting until after Christmas on the 26th, but he’s wanting to be sure he gets back to start the January semester after his two years away so he wants them to know he’s ready.
We’ll see how that pans out probably this Friday or next when we get that mission call in the mail calling him to somewhere in the world to serve for two years.
(GULP)
We cleaned out that room of his.
…and went through the 47 volleyball jerseys he had stuffed into drawers.
Went through old school things and filled up his hanging file folder with school stuff for the last time along with a few other keepsakes.
Eighteen years of that boy’s life wrapped up in a few boxes filled with memories.
Gradually that room and closet of his got emptier…
and emptier…
…as I tried to hold back torrents of tears.
Our neighbors had us over for a swimming FHE and we all went around and shared our favorite things about Max (SO sweet of them).
We had his favorite dinner his last night home (Chicken Tikka Masala) and snuggled in to watch a slideshow I made for him.
I’m including the slideshow here even though it has all kinds of music problems and some important pictures that were left out…slide shows are not my forte :)
The girls wrote all kinds of notes for him.
He had scriptures with us that last morning he was home and Claire requested some pictures with him that she could put in her bedroom:
…and in her folder for school.
So then of course we had to do it with all the girls even though we were all a little teary-eyed.
Then those sisters of his were all off.
And after a few last-minute pack-ups, Dave and Max and I were off to take him to start the first chapter of the rest of his life.
At BYU.
So here I am to give advice to the mothers out there who will have to do this some day (since no one told me).
It is awful to send a child off into the big world after holding him so tight for so long.
It hurts in all kinds of ways.
BUT at the same time it is somehow grand and exhilarating (not yet, but I have total confidence that it will be in the future!).
And it’s going to be ok.
…at least that’s what I keep telling myself!
More on the grand part tomorrow.