I put my second child, my daughter Victoria, on a plane yesterday. Today, I grapple with waves of sadness and grief. Why? Because I like her. Because we had a beautiful, loving, close, grounded, and fun time together during her visit for reading week. A veritable retreat from everyday life, and an oasis from the hustle of both our worlds.
Having four children has taught me more about life and the people in it than anything I could have learned in the psychology degree I have always regretted not finishing. This week’s lesson is one of being the observer instead of the fixer.
It’s not easy to go from the mom making sure your kid eats their vegetables to the mom of an adult who buys their own groceries and orders their own Uber and chooses whether to drop a class they are struggling with in University. It was my plan all along to raise a self-sufficient adult, and Victoria was the most reluctant of all my children to stand up to my suggestions and make her own decisions which made her independence that much more pride-inducing.
She’s grown up. She’s smart and funny and caring. She’s the type of person I’d actually want to be friends with if I were 20 years old too. How amazing is it as a parent to say, “I like my child!” because, let’s be honest, there are times when we are raising our children that despite a deep-seated innate love we don’t really like them all that much.
And now the grief.
I have decided that I am going to start writing about the grief of motherhood on a regular basis. There is no way that for the amount of love a mother has for her children that she doesn’t grieve to an equal extent the losses that inevitably show up in our lives. From the last time they ask you to read them a bedtime story, to the heartache of not being able to take away the pain of unrequited love, to the empty nest and all the challenges in between, motherhood is one long exploration of the grieving process.
My tears yesterday were about Victoria leaving for University after a great visit as much as they were for the loss of her childhood. I miss having her easy nature around in my everyday life. I miss her relationship with her younger brothers. I miss being the one she told all her sorrows and celebrations to every day before she left for school.
I often wondered why so many people were resistant to change in their life and now I see that change and growth are very closely related with loss. It doesn’t mean that something great doesn’t come in its place. I look forward to watching Victoria become a professional who has an impact in the world of mental health. I look forward to witnessing her having her own family one day. And, having lived through these lessons with her and her sister and brothers, I can be there for her own day as she grieves the losses that motherhood will bestow upon her life.