When you give your children wings...

and they fly away

This past Christmas was going to be extra special. My son and his Dad would be coming to Portugal to visit. Last Christmas and for the last several years I would visit them in the USA for the holidays. But last Christmas, the day before I was to return to Portugal, I tested positive for Covid. It was Omicron. And it wasn’t pleasant. I spent ten days in an airport hotel while the wind blew chill and snow fell like old Christmas lights. I couldn’t even get a decent cup of coffee. Food had to be delivered - no room service. And it was only taken as far as the lobby. Stifling my coughing and masking up I had to shuffle down to the lobby to get food. I promised myself I would never return. Not only because of Covid. More because I can’t tolerate cold, cloudy weather.

Imagine how happy this mom was when her son decided to visit with his Dad. I had illusions of sharing my beautiful life in the Algarve with my son, who is an entrepreneur also, gifting him with the daily blessings of walks on the cliffs.

After three days in Lisbon he decided to leave. I won’t go into his reasons. I don’t know if they were honest. Only that it left a wave of devastation in my heart. For weeks I’ve considered how to handle this. But a broken heart can only be mended from the inside.

Since my son was two he declared, “I do it meself.” I promoted his independence. I knew there would be so many times I would not be able to pick him up. He had to learn to get up himself. However, I was always there to offer encouragement or if needed, the helping hand that would make the difference between staying down or getting up. A fine line to tread.

After weeks of angst, guilt, anger, disappointment and tons of reflection here is where I am.

I gave him wings and he used them.

Whether it was to fly away from me or towards something or someone else I don’t know. But if you’re a mom, be assured, your heart will be broken. And perhaps for good reason.

We give birth to these beings. The umbilical is cut really and figuratively. Yet our blood is carried in their veins the same way our parents’ blood is in our own veins. We are part of one another regardless of what happens. It’s DNA and it’s unassailable.

At exactly the same time, our children are their own human. We don’t own them. We nurture them to grow. At our best we gently release them into life with a promise that there will always be a nest to return to. We hope they will. But mostly they won’t. Not if we’ve done our job.

So I’m caught in this paradox. Did I do well as a mother or did I fail? If he chooses to spend his time with others is that a rejection of me or is that simply his choice to be his own human with his own life? What is the role of empathy? Can he understand how much it hurts? I didn’t when I hurt my parents through my own selfish behavior only to realize this years later as a parent myself.

Here’s what happened. I wrote my son a letter telling him how I felt. In it I told him a story, about my father. When I was a sophomore in college I went home for Easter and did a very stupid thing. I behaved beyond poorly. My father never said anything at the time.

It was May 8, 1978 when I opened my father’s letter. In it he told me how disappointed he was in me. Why? Because he knew I was better than my behavior. And he knew it, he said, because he and my mother were my parents. And they were better than that and I carried their blood in my veins. In that letter he wrote a joke he used to tell. I knew it was an act of forgiveness.

I opened that letter at 10am. My father died at 5am that same morning but I didn’t know it. My sister had called me at 6am only saying that my father was in the hospital and that I needed to come home as soon as possible. I had gone to the college community building to see if someone could loan me their car so I could drive home from Maine to Boston. It was then that I checked my mailbox and found his letter.

I found my father’s letter in a box last week. My Dad’s timing was always impeccable. I have kept that letter all these years. I reread it. And so I wrote and sent my own letter to my son expressing my disappointment and telling him that he was better than that because his parents were better than that. I told him I loved him with every once of my being. I don’t expect a response.

What goes unsaid, remains unsaid. What is not spoken, may never be spoken.

I sent my letter.

I gave him wings. Now let’s see what he does with them. It’s not up to me anymore. If you’re a parent reading this I hope that my story is a salve for those times when your children will break your heart so that they can become their own version of who they are and not yours. After all, that’s our job isn’t it?