Simultaneously, Mother and little girl reached arms toward the other and, as if performing a much practiced dance routine, the little girl jumped as Mother leaned forward to catch her. Perfectly in sync and without missing a step, Mother continued walking down the cracked sidewalk. As the little girl rested her head on the familiar shoulder, Mother absentmindedly pushed strands of sweaty hair out of the child's eyes.
I knew what you were thinking at that moment and what had preoccupied your thought during the weeks leading up to this day. Could it have been so long ago? Hadn't it only been yesterday that the little girl in your life was stumbling down your sidewalk with you in tow? And now she was no longer wearing Daddy's t-shirt but a graduation cap and gown.
You had experienced all the anxieties of a first-time mother as your child began her formal education. As her schooling continued, you became more aware that what seemed to be of monumental importance to as a first-grade mother seemed almost insignificant as your pre-teen began junior high.
You began to notice the subtle signals of a struggling adolescent that told you to begin letting go. Your child's needs changed. She need you not to need her so much. She needed you to be there but in the background. You became her anchor, just beneath the surface of her life, unseen but providing the security she needed to begin the search for self. She sometimes was rude and often sarcastic but she was also sensitive and forgiving.
There were certainly times when you longed for her adulthood and independence from you. But the ambivalence of parenting quickly diminished that longing as she began to plan her life apart from you.
Suddenly, test scores and school achievements lost a little of their glitter. You now begin to wonder if she is prepared to make it on her own 200 miles away from you. The umbilical cord that stretched until it was forced to break seemed to be growing again.
But Mother Nature will assure that will not happen. The cockiness and confidence of a high school graduate will wear on your nerves until you find yourself digging in the attic for those college-bound suitcases. And just as you retrieve the last dusty duffle bag from among the boxes of Fisher-Price Little People and Madam Alexander dolls, you pause and look around the stuffy attic.
You know you are still looking for something. I know what you are looking for. You are looking for that little girl in her Daddy's t-shirt with arms held high, silently asking for the soft shoulder of a young mother.
You say the tears are related only to the dust and mold that have always given you sneezing fits and blood-shot eyes. I know better. I only hope that by crying with you there will not be so many tears when my time comes.
But something tells me that that is not the way it will happen.
June 2, 1991
Wonderful!
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