Did nobody warn me? Or was I not listening? One day my oldest son was here, driving me nuts, making me laugh, giving me bear hugs, and the next day he was gone. Finis. Jobus Completicus. Thankyouforyourtime. Ciao.
For eighteen years I was involved in an interminable cycle of guiding, probing, cajoling, punishing, cheering and forcing him to grow up. August 7, 2006, I apparently finished.
It was only the other day that I dropped him off at preschool, such a big boy with his new backpack, hair combed in a little blond Elvis wave. I yelled to get him to turn and wave good-bye. When I picked him up and asked him how the day went, he stonewalled me.
“Fine.”
“What’d you do?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean nothing?”
Silence.
“Did you color or paint or play or sing songs?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you learn anything new?”
“Yeah.
That never changed. He was never into reportage like his younger siblings who exhaust every detail with color commentary and editorial opinion. The perennial struggle for information stretched into his school years and resulted in countless “incomplete” homework assignments, neglected permission slips, and missed parent teacher conferences. He didn’t tell me anything, and I don’t think that was a symptom of rebellion. It’s just the way his brain was wired. I learned to adapt, improvise, investigate and pull information out of places that mothers with “normal” children didn’t know existed.
The only way I knew he wasn’t going to graduate high school on time was by running reconnaissance missions to the school.
“He says he’s caught up,” I would tell the teacher.
“He’s not turned anything in all semester,” was a common refrain.
So it was with desperate abandon that I took control. I stayed up nights and nagged during the day to make sure homework was done. I threatened, bribed and pleaded to get him across that high school graduation stage. And then it happened. He freakin’ did it. He graduated high school, and even though I felt the diploma was more mine than his, it had his name on it and that meant it was over, he didn’t ever have to go back. Which meant I was done, didn’t ever have to deal with those awkward parent/teacher conferences or embarrassing moments of misinformation that pigeonholed me among the “bad” parents who don’t care what happens to their kids.
After graduation, he quit his grocery store job. Then he started gallivanting around to rock concerts, dating a girl with a one-word “awesome” vocabulary, and chasing after the carnival. I worried that he’d wander off into obscurity, and I’d never know where he went because he’d forgotten to tell me.
In his defense, he knew his days were numbered. Six months prior he’d enlisted in the Marine Corps, so he was spending his pre-boot camp days as foolishly as he could manage. At this, he was quite successful.
His entry date loomed for so long it seemed like it would never come. It was a thing to admire from a distance, never having to fully reckon with it because it hung there, sparkling like a promise. Then it drew closer and began to take the shape of a threat, and then a hole.
When the day arrived, it was like closing the book on motherhood. A college parent could say it’s like leaving for college, but it’s not. Leaving for the military is a whole other beast. College parents don’t think about their child dying in a war. They think about them making friends and growing their minds and finding mates and careers and heading out into the world to seek their fortunes. Military parents think, “Iraq is so far away.” And then, of course, there are the daily reports of roadside bombs, and body counts, and all of the arguing about the rightness or wrongness of the situation, and more bodies. Always more bodies.
We were standing in the yard when the white car pulled up. I thought, “I suppose if a military car ever pulls up to my house again it will be black.” But this one was white, driven by Sgt. Kalbow, my son’s recruiter. He was taking him away, to boot camp, where he would get beat up and beat down and turned into Uncle Sam’s definition of a man.
I tried to hold it together. I really did. But there was a point that holding it together no longer mattered. It was more than him leaving home, and more than him going into the military. It was a transition out of motherhood. It felt as a sudden and irrevocable as an amputation. He was leaving, dammit, and the immensity of the moment, of this sudden, painful, five-minute transition strangled me. It was like swallowing an elephant. I couldn’t not cry. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to go. I did. I wanted him to find himself, to be successful, to latch onto something that would take him places, to see the world, to experience every new thing. I wanted him to come home a Marine, in uniform. I wanted him to know the experience of being at his lowest point and slogging out of that hole to the feeling that waited at the finish line. I wanted him to be successful. But the leaving….dear God, no one could have prepared me for that.
I thought back to the day that he was no longer my only child. I was great with his sister, three days past my due date, and it was time for another doctor’s appointment. I didn’t know that my backache was early labor and figured I’d see him again in an hour or so. I drove away with his 20-month-old face looking at me from the front door. He was waving bye-bye when another contraction gripped me, and I realized that I wasn’t coming home alone. I sobbed all the way to the clinic.
In an instant, it seemed, he was the one leaving me standing in the door waving bye-bye while he headed off into the wide unknown. I loved him with my whole heart and tried to press that into him with one last hug. “Let’s hit it,” Sgt. said, and I had to let go. I watched him fold his body into the car. He looked at me one last time and waved with two fingers. Then he fixed his gaze straight ahead, and I watched as the car drove away, paused at the corner, and then turned, out of sight.
If this were a play, I would be crying and applauding at the same time at your heartfelt, beautiful telling of this milestone.
Posted by: Mel | January 12, 2007 at 04:08 PM
Holy Crap! (That's my first internet swear!) You're killing me, absolutely killing me. This was amazing, beautiful, gut-wrenching, sob-inducing. In other words, classic Cyn Kitchen. I'm so happy your back (but sorry for your having to experience the inevitable good-bye of the growing up child.)
Posted by: Mary-LUE | January 12, 2007 at 04:10 PM
Lady friend ... it's about time you were back!! I've missed your writings ... even though I so remember that little boy who's now a man.
Posted by: Rachel | January 15, 2007 at 09:47 AM
I very much enjoyed your post. I have a reservist son (age 25) who is about to return from Iraq after a year there and will finally finish his degree this coming year, and another son in the Air Force full-time who will be returning for his various 3 month stints to Iraq or elsewhere.
I remember well the letting go experience - first one over six years ago, and then again three years ago. I remember my pride in their accomplishments at their basic training graduations. I remember not being able to recognize my son/s in the sea of new soldier faces!
Your contrast of the college departure vs. military departure is so true. It is a true letting go all at once.
Again - great entry. I forwarded the link to a friend whose only child departed for the Army this past Monday. I thought it would be well worth the additional tears. : - )
Posted by: Valerie | January 15, 2007 at 05:57 PM
missed you.
happy new year, and all the best to you and yours...
Posted by: jennifer | January 16, 2007 at 01:44 PM
Wow...great post. I have to go hug my oldest son now. Thankfully he's still only 11.
Posted by: edj | February 05, 2007 at 05:49 AM
Ouch! I can't hardly see the screen because of the tears in my eyes. I guess there is no way to prepare us for that day. Beautiful.
Posted by: Susie J | February 05, 2007 at 12:31 PM
Even though my 18-month old is in the background, saying "look!", "woof!", and "hug!" to our dog, I am still reading this and freaking out about the day she will leave the house for good.
Best wishes to you and the man you raised.
Posted by: Binky | February 05, 2007 at 04:23 PM
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Posted by: iknowall | June 01, 2007 at 02:19 PM
OMG...i dont even remeber what i was searching for when I can across this..and have sit here and cried my eyes out...my baby leaves in 8 day for the Navy, and I really don't know how I am going to handle it.
Posted by: C Bova | August 29, 2007 at 05:51 PM