When my grandmother used to force a little smile, standing by her front door and waving as our station wagon pulled away from the curb, I could see how sorry she was that we were leaving. As a child, I didn’t understand the pleasure she must have felt at our holiday visit, much less the pain of our departure.
An annual event, our family get-together involved a messy, noisy and tiring eight-hour drive to see the relatives. But to this day, those end-of-year visits to the cozy home where my mother grew up remain a source of warm memories — memories of aunts and uncles and cousins, my grandmother fussing affectionately at my grandfather, a fire roaring in the small living room, turkey or pot roast served on fine china in the adjoining dining room, and all of us chatting and eating around a crowded table.
Yet it is the image of my grandmother waving as we drove off that replays in my mind, over and over again. And as she grew older, she was less able to mask her sadness. It must have been hard to watch us leave, knowing we wouldn’t be back for six or seven months. And wondering, particularly as she aged, if she would still be around to welcome us.
Those goodbyes came into clearer focus as I entered adolescence; the maturing process has a way of enabling us to appreciate greater texture in others’ emotions, including those that most adults seek to hide.
Many decades later, now I, too, stand at the door and wave as my children return to their lives. But I am less adept at stoicism than my grandmother, perhaps by nature or perhaps because her life was more stable and secure than mine. I choke up as my young men wheel their suitcases out of the bedroom. And I struggle to hold back tears though I do my level best to smile cheerfully until they are out of sight.
And then I cry. I cry until my eyes are burning. I cry until my weariness catches up to my desire for solitude and silence. I cry out all the conflicting feelings tangled up in the four days that the three of us are together — joy in the moments we have shared; sorrow, regret, guilt; pangs of missing my boys before their Uber even pulls away from the curb; and relief.
Relief that I don’t have to listen or speak or cook or clean up; relief that I can deal with my aching heart and its nagging recollections (and then set them aside); relief that I can rest — not listening, not speaking, not cooking, not cleaning up — not a factor in anyone else’s well-being. I no longer flagellate myself over that relief; these past few years, after any visit, I’m bone-tired. Physically tired. Emotionally tired. Filled with anguish that I cannot recreate a family — a feeling of family — that once was.
After my boys leave, I curl up with a big cup of coffee or tea. Sometimes I crawl into bed for a few hours or a full day if I can. I am lost in thought. I am hyper-aware of the way my world was cleaved into irretrievably altered parts — before divorce, after divorce — and I wonder if that is true for my sons as well. How could it not be true, especially at the holidays?
There is a third act of cleavage now — one more wrenching than I could have imagined — the time before financial reality required that I sell our little home, and this strange time that is still so fluid. This disorienting “after.”
The fatigue is part of aging of course, but not just the many days of cleaning and shopping in anticipation of my sons’ arrival. It is the physical manifestation of the emotional churning that is buried beneath my desire to entertain my children, to please them, to make up to them for what was broken; to connect with them as adults, and to reassure them that I am fine. It is the stress that I put myself through hoping that their visit will not be a disappointment. That I will not be a disappointment. Disappointing in who I have become and in my inability to establish — or re-establish — a place to call home.
If I don’t know where “home” is anymore, how can they?
Another emotional echo, albeit less intense – knowing they are flying off to the “fun” parent, the one with the security of a regular job and money in the bank and a home that he owns, the one whose life is not perfect (no one’s is), but whose world must seem fuller and more like a traditional family. After all, there are friends and in-laws and steps and laughter; more laughter (I sense) than with me, the serious parent. The solo parent. The tired parent.
I also find myself caught in the shadow of the years that I was the disciplining parent, the scowling parent who was scrimping for every dollar, the parent who said no, the parent who was increasingly short-tempered and worn out, the parent who must feel like a burden or a worry to her children. Then, and likely now. At least, that is what I imagine. And that is what I wish never to become – an emotionally needy parent.
Comparisons aside and wanting my sons to enjoy all the family they can, there is this, and it is harder: knowing that I will not see my firstborn for a year and his brother for roughly two months. When one or both of my sons leave, I feel drained of color and conversation, cut off from the unwavering purpose that energized me when I was raising them, a sensation that is rekindled when they are around. I feel sad. I feel alone. I feel emptied. Isn’t that why they call it empty nest?
And why can’t we say we are sad when that is precisely what we are feeling? Why shouldn’t we be allowed to express this perfectly rational emotion when it hits? It’s hard to watch those we cherish leave. Can’t we just say so?
Now, I don’t think that means we guilt our kids about how little we see them. Nor do I believe we need to wear our emotions on our sleeves. Reason dictates that how we are and how we say we are – as well as how we behave – are not always the same.
As for my experiencing empty nest as a periodically recurring event, not to mention the fatigue of so many emotions, the feelings will persist for a day or two and then they will pass. The rhythms of daily life will return. Occasional phone calls with my adult children will resume. I will go on with remaking my life in a new place, doing the best that I can, happy to have cool neighbors in an interesting neighborhood. I will try to look forward more and backward less. And I will be content that my children are doing well, even if it’s so hard to watch them leave.
What about those parents who see their adult children and grandchildren on a regular basis? Do they wish they had more time for their own lives? Are they happy for the frequency of their visits? If there are conflicts within the family, do they wish there were more time and distance rather than less? For those of us who never quite put our post-divorce lives back together, will we always feel an unsettling set of emotions in our visits with our adult children — including guilt that we didn’t do enough or become enough to model a “successful” life? Will we worry about becoming emotionally needy parents? Can we admit to simultaneous feelings of anguish and relief, pride in raising them and regret that it wasn’t the life we imagined?
You May Also Enjoy
We had both sons and their girlfriends here over the holidays. The last two left last night. The house feels very empty this morning. They bring such fresh energy into our lives, don’t they? I am sad, I miss them, but like you say, those feelings fade as we go back into our lives. And having our own lives, whether our children live near or far, is crucial. Some of my new year “intentions” revolve around just that. My life hasn’t circulated around my kids’ lives in a very long time, but I want to be sure as I age, that I have my own work and purpose that isn’t connected to them or even to my husband. This is my chance to focus on what I want, on my own interests.
And as for the financial uncertainty that you are experiencing, one of my tasks is to do whatever I can to change our system in the U.S. so that everyone is guaranteed health care, housing, clean air, and a living wage — in whatever form that might take — so that we all can feel safe and live our best lives.
I love this post. I feel what you are feeling. Thank you for putting it all into words.
Yes, so many of us are likely feeling this way.
Thank you as always for your good words, Judith. And wishing you a very happy and healthy 2019.
D.A. – You’ve done an excellent job of describing what I, my brother, and my mother have been going through this past year, and are especially going through now in what are probably the last few days of her life. The wondering if we will see her again. The intense emotions of love and caring. The protecting yourself so you don’t disintegrate, and then feeling conflicted because you do.
I particularly relate to the sadness at leaving, from both sides. We have known for a while that times are short, so we’ve tried to express the depth of our feelings. Somehow though, words are still inadequate and, as you say, it is the parting look that expresses it all, tears you apart as it is happening, and which you will never forget, for better and worse.
And, after spending this last week with her, I’ve become aware of a new way of being conflicted – the difference between her experience and ours. Since she spends much time unconscious I’ve not wanted her to pass without being in her right mind and aware of us being around. But when she is aware, although she enjoys our presence, she isn’t happy with her situation, so her happiness and ours are at odds. I’m having to accept that in the end it is about her, not us.
Robert, what you are experiencing is so terribly sad, and yet the love that is shared is so clear. I wish for all of you a peaceful passage through what lies ahead, and for your mother to know how deeply she is cherished.
I get depressed when my kid goes back to school after vacation and is gone for 8 straight hours. I dread the day of the empty nest.
When our kid was little and my parents were alive, they would leave out the child-size table that had belonged to my mom when she was little and the bite-size rocking chair that had been my dad’s, the table strewn with half-finished drawings and crayons. In the middle of the living room. My mom said they liked it that way because it prolonged the feeling that we might walk through the door any minute. How hard it must have been for them when I moved to another continent, and how much worse when I had a kid they mostly saw via skype.
I grew up seeing my grandmas every weekend. One babysat us all day Saturday while my dad drove my mom to the grocery store (she didn’t drive and, like most families then, we had only one car anyway). My grandma would stand at her front gate when we left and wave a white handkerchief as we drove away, us watching out the rear window until we went over the hill and out of sight.
Separation only hurts when the person leaving is loved wholly. That said, visits can be exhausting, especially if they aren’t often. You prepare, you plan, you clean, you cook, then, while they’re in the house you try to make everything smooth and seamless. It’s a pleasure to do because it’s out of love, but that doesn’t make it less of an effort.
What a beautiful comment. I love the fact that your mom left the table and drawings out. So poignant.
And the kids themselves. They’re so not perfect either. Each with their own stresses and disappointments from the year. Mental health issues, substances. Things we can worry about. It is hard being them and it is hard being them coming to us as they are each time. There is just so much feeling, so much aching feeling. Even the love aches. It is hard to trust ones own perspective from one day to the next. And then they go and all you can see and feel is the spot they sat in, their lingering scent in the bedroom. Rumpled sheets.
I so agree with you about the disappointment of oneself. As they get get older and smarter, they can see us more clearly. Or perhaps are we dessicating, failing ourselves….it is impossible to know. We are ordinary, forgive us.
Thank you DA. I think- it was a bit of a shock. But it is good to know others feel as I do. No matter what else we achieve and fail to achieve, they are our glory and will ever be.
My own mother, after a long and full-careered life, slipped into unconsciousness, mouthing “I love. I love you. I love you. I love you.” To all of us kids. Painful as it is, I wish, for each of us, nothing less.