Forever Mom

When I started this blog, I was convinced my children were determined to live out the rest of their lives in the comfort and security of their childhood home. I was concerned that the lifestyle we had provided them had inhibited their desire to ever forge a life out on their own. The guilt and frustration that propelled me to write this, had led to a good case of feeling sorry for myself. And then I attended our family reunion. This bi-annual event, that attempts to gather as many bodies of our large, regionally spread-out family as possible, took place last week as part of a wedding celebration for my cousin's son. While I was there, I was reminded of a hard truth. There are some moms who will never have the opportunity to send their child off to college, sit in the church as they are married or babysit for their grandchild. My aunt is one of those moms. She is the youngest girl of a family of nine children. She is my father's sister. She is also the mother of a thirty-seven year old child with Down's Syndrome.

This woman, at eighty-two, could teach anyone what it is to be a mother. She continues to take care of her child (who is the last of five) with unfailing faith and generosity of spirit. If she has ever been overwhelmed by the task, I have never seen it. What I have seen is her unrelenting sense of humor, which has become legendary in our family. If she ever has the chance to write a silly poem or wear an outrageous outfit, she grabs the opportunity with contagious enthusiasm. But what really struck me this past week, is how her legacy of selflessness has been passed down to her children. The way they support her and their sister is inspiring. While they have their arguments, as any family does, they never cease to rally around each other when needed. So the next time I'm feeling unappreciated or taken for granted, I'm determined instead to feel grateful. For my own two healthy children and my wonderful extended family whose devotion and grace I can only hope to aspire to.

24 Hours

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly life can change. In a matter of moments, your life can be headed into completely uncharted territory with no inkling of your eventual destination. This past week was one of those times for our family. On Sunday, we were hosting a family reunion party for thirty people. Relatives aged five to eighty-six converged in our back yard for a day of fun, food and conversation. It was a great day. Twenty-four hours later we were sitting in an emergency room with our twenty-one year old son waiting to find out why he was experiencing severe abdominal pain. What was casually dismissed on Monday morning as flu symptoms became instead an inflamed appendix that was on the verge of rupturing. As my husband and I sat there, waiting for Josh to come out of surgery, we were overcome with feelings of worry and guilt. Why hadn't we realized sooner that his "cramps" were more than that? How could this have progressed so quickly to something so potentially dangerous? Funny how much you can beat yourself up with nothing but six hours and quiet to keep you company. Now that he is back home and on the road to a full recovery, it might be easy to slide back into the taking everything for granted daily routine. I hope and pray I don't. If there's anything to be learned from the past seventy-two hours, it's that life is incredibly fragile. Maybe it's not such a bad thing to be reminded of that fact every now and then.

Great Expectations

When they put that baby in your arms, the countdown begins. You start fantasizing about being able to tell everyone how, unlike other babies, yours slept through the night at three weeks. Then, you start imagining your child flying through those terrible twos without so much as a single mall-induced temper tantrum. Next stop, elementary school. Of course, your child will love learning, make lots of friends and hardly ever give you trouble about doing homework. Once your child hits middle school, you might reluctantly acknowledge puberty's role in (temporarily) halting the progress of your perfect offspring, but, even then, you figure all will be on track once she hits high school. There, you tell yourself, your child will excel in sports as well as academics, learn to drive without mowing down the neighbor's cat and graduate with an acceptance letter from the college of her choice. Right.

Nowhere in these voyages to Utopia are side trips to failing a class, smoking, having a boyfriend you can't stand, experimenting with drugs, getting arrested or God knows what else. And when you're confronted with these harsh realities, you have to look at yourself and ask some mighty tough questions. "Am I capable of unconditional love?" "Can I grit my teeth and hope for the best when my child makes choices of which I disapprove?" "Am I able to accept her for who she is, not who I want her to be?" "Can I forgive her for not learning fast enough from her mistakes?" And if the answer to any of these questions is 'I'm not so sure', you might have to ask yourself one more question, as I have lately, "Just who's disappointing who?"

I Married a Rock Star

I was ready for the mid-life crisis. I fully expected my husband to do some crazy things as he was approaching his golden years. I'd heard all the stories about running off to Jamaica with a secretary or buying a Harley and taking off for a cross-country adventure. But, while I was steeling myself for one of the cliched scenarios, I got hit with something a little different. My husband joined a rock-and-roll band. Maybe you're thinking, what's so odd about that? Nothing, I guess except in the almost thirty years I've known him, I've never heard anything but blues and jazz coming out of his lightening-fast, piano-playing fingers. The group recruited him on a recommendation from one of their fellow musicians and his keyboard wizardry blew them away. Unfortunately, most of the songs on the band's playlist had never been heard by my husband before and I'm not talking about obscure B-side melodies, I'm talking about top ten Rolling Stone, AC/DC ditties. To compound the problem, he doesn't read music so he has a stack of cheat sheets with chord progressions sitting in front of him at every gig. It's kind of cute how he has to peer over the top of his reading glasses in between songs. He's not alone. The whole band is a collection of middle-aged, frustrated musicians that is grasping the opportunity to show the kids how its done. The amazing thing is, they're damn good. As they rock out on everything from Dion to The Eagles, it's obvious how much they're enjoying themselves. And isn't that the point? Of course, it doesn't hurt if you pick up a few fans along the way and they seem to be doing that too. In a weird way, this time of our lives is a perfect time to do whatever the hell you want. If you do it well, everyone will be impressed and if you stink, people will still give you props for trying. I wonder if it's too late to slither into one of those sequined costumes and start figure skating?

Car Wars

When our daughter, Jessica, turned sixteen seven years ago, we were determined not to spoil her with her own car. After all, her father and I didn't get handed the keys to anything on our sixteenth birthdays. No sir, I had to get a part-time job and earn the money to buy my own car and my husband rode his bike or took public transportation. (They have it rough in Switzerland). We weren't completely heartless. We understood that times were different, that jobs didn't pay the percentage of a new car that they used to. So we decided to compromise. We would purchase a reasonably priced car that Jess (and later her brother, Josh) would contribute a set amount monthly towards the payment, insurance and gas. We were confident that this would work and that we weren't being too indulgent when we forked over the cash to help our young'uns have wheels. Parenting mistake #9,472.

So now here we are. They are twenty-one and twenty-three and neither one of them has managed to scrape enough money together to purchase their own vehicle. Why should they? They have a what was once-upon-a-time nice Honda Civic that they have run into the ground at their disposal without the pesky payments. Oh sure, they've managed to contribute here and there (when they have jobs) to oil changes, new brakes, etc. but the luxury of dealing with your parents concerning payments and bills bears no resemblance to dealing with banks and insurance companies. And they can't begin to build any pride of ownership (as evidenced by the condition of the car) when they haven't struggled to pay for it. Worse yet, they can't co-ordinate who has to use the car when and someone inevitably ends up asking me for the keys to my car. At this point, since we're not going to be able to use this wisdom on any additional offspring, there can be only one solution. It's time to sell the car, let them split the proceeds and put down payments on their own cars. There's just one problem. They would still have to park them on our driveway.

Meeting of the Minds

Twenty-three years after becoming parents, Daniel and I finally scheduled our first family meeting. Granted, this is probably an idea that would have been more beneficial years ago but heck, we were darn proud of ourselves that we actually got all four of us in a room at the same time without the television on. This particular pow-wow was initiated due to an unfortunate incident with the car purchased by us for use by our kids. Somehow or another this detail (the fact that it's our car) seems to be continually overlooked by our children. When my husband looked at said vehicle on the driveway, he was appalled to see it looking like something out of a Hoarders episode. Ready to relegate them both to bicycles and roller blades, we instead decided that a weekly family meeting to discuss respect, responsibility and goal-setting would be a better alternative. Okay, it was lame but we had to give it a shot.

Finding a day and time that worked for all was tough. Selling the idea was even toughter. We finally settled on Wednesday. Mid-week, right before dinner. If they behaved themselves, they might actually be fed. We set an agenda with time for complaints, concerns, compliments (don't laugh) and requests. Everyone got a chance to speak without interruption or critique. We even made sure that we ended on a positive note with everyone sharing something for which they were grateful. Surprisingly, no one groaned (loudly) and everyone seemed to think these weekly get-togethers might not be too painful and might actually be productive. I walked away feeling hopeful. After just one week, the jury's definitely still out but anything that gets this family talking has to be a step in the right direction.

TMI

One of the worst things about co-habiting with your adult children is knowing too much about what they're doing. Like most moms of my generation, I encouraged open communication with my kids from an early age so that they would feel free to come and talk to me about anything that was on their minds. I hoped this would lead to an honest exchange of ideas and feelings that would benefit all. What it did lead to is a steady stream of too much information. And I've discovered something about myself. I'm not as cool as I thought I was.

When they were younger, I could handle just about anything they threw at me. They were pretty good kids (i.e. police cars weren't regular visitors to our cul-de-sac) and their transgressions/confessions rarely kept me up at night. I figured I was through the worst of it when they each hit twenty-one. God is still laughing about that one.

Dealing with their love lives, employment (or unemployment) status, depression, financial problems, and general confusion about the direction of their lives is exhausting. I honestly try to stay out of it as much as I can but it's damn difficult when they're sleeping on the other side of my bedroom wall. (Alone, I hope). I keep telling myself that it's a temporary situation, that they're as anxious as I am to have space to themselves but lately I'm not so sure. Their current problems have given them legitimate excuses to hunker down into the family manor and their father and I are trying our best to help them with the tough transition to real life. I just wish they wouldn't feel so compelled to let me in on everything. They could at least have the courtesy to do what I did for my parents. Lie.