Since December of 2021, I’ve been a full-time caregiver for my mom, 87, who suffered a stroke in November 2021. I’ve learned a few things about caregiving — and am still learning — so I thought I’d share some things I’ve figured out along the way. I’ve made mistakes for sure, but I’ve also had a few successes.
It’s more important now than ever to prioritize. I work from home, so I get to be about 10 feet away from Mom while I work, for which I’m super grateful. I’ve cut back on some of my volunteer work, especially anything that requires me to be out of the house, since Mom can’t be left alone. There are very things we do in which we don’t include Mom.
Create routines. We’ve set up a schedule of meals that are mostly the same each week. Friday night is hamburger night, Sunday is hot dog night, and so on. This gives Mom some stability and sameness and allows her to anticipate and, I think, feel a sense of security.
Find fun things to do that are easy for her. Our town has a Christmas light display that you drive through, which she loves. We do it every year and talk about it so she looks forward to it. We also have TV shows that we watch regularly — right now we’re binging Master Chef (Season Two). We talk about what’s going on and who we like and don’t like. I think it makes her feel a little more a part of things.
Be willing to make a fool of yourself. I do all sorts of crazy things at home like singing and dancing to make her laugh. I try to crack her up as often as possible. I’ve always heard that laughing is good for the body and soul, so I’ll do nearly anything to give her a chuckle at my expense.
Artie snoozing at Mom’s feet
Pets are wonderful companions. In spite of herself, Mom has grown to love Artie, our mini Aussiedoodle. He sits on her lap and snuggles with her and I’ve actually caught her talking to him. It’s nice that she can enjoy him without the responsibility of caring for him.
Become a location scout. There are some places it’s easy for us to go, some places not so much. I’m learning to skip locations and venues that aren’t accessible for her, to keep her from getting frustrated and feeling like an outsider.
Develop and cultivate patience. Sometimes it would be more efficient for me to do something for her, but it’s better for her to feel as independent as possible. It can be hard for me to let go and let her do things, but when I can (while watching out of the corner of my eye) I let her try first.
Talk about the future. I want her to have things to look forward to — gatherings with family, dinners out, special events — so I talk to her about what’s coming up on our calendar and long-term season changes. She’s especially looking forward to spring and summer, when we sit on the patio, look at the flowers and enjoy a glass of wine together.
Understand that you will get frustrated. It’s not unlike parenting in that it’s the most rewarding job, but can also be the most challenging. I don’t have a lot of time to myself, but I balance that with the memories I’m creating with Mom.
Educate yourself on the medical stuff. I’m lucky to have a sister, brother-in-law, and nephew who are physicians, so I can get easy answers to my medical questions as quickly as I can send a text message. Otherwise I’d have to spend quite a bit of time researching and studying her medical needs.
Schedule time off regularly. I’ll admit I resisted this at first, but a family member insisted and I’m glad she did. I use the time for simple me time — hair and nails, shopping, errands, and sometimes I go to Jim’s office to get some work done before we go out to dinner.
Empathy is important. Before her stroke, Mom was an independent, active person who could come and go as she pleased. Now she depends on us for transportation to appointments and to church on Sunday. I try to frame it as time together rather than highlight the fact that she can no longer drive.
Reset your housekeeping standards. We are blessed with a wonderful housekeeper who comes each week and I often wonder what she must think of us. The house looks great after she’s been here, but it only lasts a day or so. I’d rather spend time with Mom watching TV than clean house, so I really don’t care.
These are only a few of the lessons I’ve learned from this past 15 months; I’m still learning. I mess up each and every day and try to do better next time. Above all, I try to enjoy our time together and ensure that she enjoys it too. I wouldn’t trade this time with her for the world.
For 40 years, the holidays started for me the week before Thanksgiving. It was a short work week, and I’d start packing on Monday for my one-and-a-half-hour trip to Jonesboro, Arkansas from Memphis. I couldn’t wait to get in the car and drive over one of Memphis’ two bridges crossing the Mighty Mississippi River.
I’d carefully plan what to wear on Thanksgiving Day with the family, and to church on Sunday morning. Saturday night after Thanksgiving we would always celebrate my birthday with a big dinner of Mom’s homemade chicken & dumplings, my favorite.
When Jim and I married in 1986, we split our time between his family and mine for the holidays, which made it even more special. Different traditions only added to the festive feeling and I happen to love turkey and dressing.
When we had children, packing became more complex. If you’ve ever traveled with infants and toddlers, you know what I mean. And, of course, they had to be dressed perfectly for the holiday pictures. Through those years, the packing and anticipation of the trip became part of the fun of the holiday.
When we moved here to Jonesboro in July 2019, I gave little thought to the holidays and focused on getting settled and helping Jim get started in real estate.
In November, when the subject of Thanksgiving came up, it occurred to me that there would be no packing and driving, no bridge crossing, no overnight stays. It’s a short 15-minute drive to my sister’s house, so if I forget something I can easily drive home and get it.
When I expressed this to Jim, he replied by offering to drive me to Memphis so we could drive across the bridge. Sometimes men really don’t get it, y’all. But it was a nice thought.
Change is a constant. I don’t fear it, I welcome it, because it always brings new experiences to enjoy and new insights.
If you take a close look at “Santa,” you’ll notice a family resemblance. That’s because Jim wore the Santa suit at our neighborhood party. We were hoping the girls wouldn’t notice.
I think as we age, the changes in our lives help us adapt to the challenges. I miss the days of young children and smocked dresses. I miss staying up late to finish matching sister outfits for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
But I no longer have the energy to stay up late — this one-time night owl is now regularly in bed by 11:00 p.m. I’m too tired at the end of a day to spend hours preparing a full dinner. I’m thankful that I no longer have to worry about diapers, carseats, strollers, and the like — at least not until and unless I have grandchildren.
My mom, at 86, can no longer make the homemade chicken & dumplings, so we’ll do something different for my birthday. I really don’t care as long as we’re all together. But I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss the gathering around Mom’s dining room table and those yummy dumplings.
Our youngest, Sara Ann, is coming in from Little Rock, so she will be the one packing the car and driving. Elizabeth, our oldest, is in San Diego and can’t make it home. I’m still not used to having a member of our family absent on Thanksgiving.
Tonight, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we’ll stay in our own home, prop up our feet and watch TV like a regular weeknight. And maybe toast the holiday with a nice glass of wine.
Then tomorrow we’ll pack up Artie (our puppy), an appetizer, and homemade cranberry salad and drive 15 minutes to my sister’s. And it’ll be a great day, except I’ll miss Elizabeth something fierce.
This was shortly after I tried to dye my hair purple. IDK what I was thinking. These are two of the few dresses I didn’t make for the girls. But I love velvet, so I couldn’t resist. My girls with their young twin cousins
I attended a Catholic school in first and second grade, a perfectly fine school. However, in Jonesboro, Arkansas at that time it was the only private school, and 99 percent of all of the children went to the public schools in town. They were creatively named North, South, East, and West, and I desperately wished I could attend one of them. I hated being different.
Our Lady of Jonesboro Catholic School* was small, with only one class in each grade, taught by nuns from the adjacent convent. I can only describe myself as possibly the worst Catholic school student in history.
Each morning we went to chapel. Girls were required to wear a veil on their heads, and I was fascinated with the many different designs and colors available. My parents probably spent a fortune on them, because no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t keep up with a chapel veil to save my poor scatterbrained soul. Thankfully, our teacher, Sister Ann*, kept a supply of extras for girls who had no veils, but I’m pretty sure I depleted her stock a couple of times that year, which did nothing to endear me to Sister Ann.
Sister Ann just didn’t like me, no matter what I did — I’m pretty sure I knew that, even at six. She didn’t like that I couldn’t keep up with my chapel veil, and she didn’t like that I didn’t like milk.
After my first day of school at Our Lady of Jonesboro, I knew I was in trouble and that first grade was going to be a long year. Apparently Sister Ann thought it was very important for little first graders to drink their milk. All of it. And lunch came with one of those small milk cartons that sat squarely in the very special milk-carton-shaped space in the lunch tray. I still hate those things.
Sister Ann would stand at the cafeteria’s exit, next to the trash can where all of the good children threw their empty milk cartons. The good children would crumple the top of their milk cartons into the bottom, signifying to Sister Ann that it was empty. She would look at them and smile and nod as they threw away their empty cartons and ran out to play. Good, nice, milk-drinking children.
I knew I’d be in trouble if she caught me with a full milk carton, so I would wait and watch for her to become distracted, then bolt to the door, pitch the milk and leave. But more often than not I was stuck at the door with Sister Ann. She would pick up my milk carton, shake it, and send me back to my seat to drink my milk. No smile. No nod. I tried to bash in the top to make it look empty, but they don’t bash all that well when they are mostly full. Once I tried just telling Sister Ann that I didn’t like milk. I was sent back to my seat to drink it anyway.
I began to develop strategies for disposing of the milk. By the second week of school, it dominated my entire lunch, as I searched out other kids who might drink my extra milk. As my welcome wore out with one group, they would finally tell me they were sick of drinking my milk, so I would move on in search of true milk lovers. No time for socializing, I had work to do. I had to get rid of that milk.
Soon I got the idea to mix the milk in with uneaten food. This meant I had to leave food uneaten, so there were a lot of hungry afternoons in school. Spaghetti was especially good for soaking up extra milk, and the rolls looked good, but I only used them for milk sponges.
I realize how obsessive this sounds; but the fact that I remember these thought processes means I had far too much anxiety as a six-year-old. I spent my entire first grade year in dread of lunchtime. All morning I’d be sick with worry over how I would deal with the milk and avoid Sister Ann’s reprisal. Then after lunch I could relax, only to do it again the next day.
I’m not sure why I never told my parents about the milk anxiety; I’m sure they would have done something to help. They weren’t milk drinkers either, and my dad really didn’t think it was that good for you. But I didn’t tell, and I spent my first year of school unnecessarily miserable about lunch. I made few friends because I spent lunchtime table hopping to find takers for my milk. I probably didn’t learn a thing in the classes before lunch, preoccupied as I was by lunch anxiety.
I also remember feeling that I didn’t fit in; everyone else liked milk, why didn’t I? What was wrong with me? Sister Ann sure thought something was wrong. I remember wishing I could just like milk and be like everyone else. And I wished I could go to public school like everyone else, where I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a Sister Ann.
I was thankful when the year ended, and even more thankful when my second grade teacher turned out not to be a nun, but a lovely woman named Mrs. Garfunkel* whom I admired greatly. And Mrs. Garfunkel didn’t care about milk.
This dumb little story tells me a lot about myself; it at least partially explains why I still feel like I never fit in anywhere. We never know the full extent of the demands we make on children, and the impact it can have. I’m not blaming Sister Ann for all of my issues, but in her stubborn insistence on my drinking milk, she planted a seed in me: that I was a screwup who couldn’t remember her chapel veil, and a bad girl because I didn’t like milk.
We never know what the children in our lives are miserable about and don’t tell us. But I think the lesson is that we need to be very careful that the hills we choose to die on are worth it. Sister Ann chose milk and chapel veils. And, partly because of her choice, there’s a 56-year-old woman who still doesn’t fit in. I wonder if she would think it was worth it.
*All names have been changed. This is not a smear piece, just some thoughts and insights I wish I’d had when my girls were six. Also, I have nothing against nuns, but Sister Ann was really just not a very nice woman.
Epilogue: I got smarter in the ensuing years. I didn’t like tomatoes either, and remember telling one of the counselors at church camp I was allergic to them. Much to my relief, they kept me far away from tomatoes the entire week. If I’d only known the word allergic in the first grade, my entire life might have been different.
When you become a parent, you sign up for a life of mixed emotions.
You want them to sit up, but you know you’ll miss holding them.
You want them to walk, but you fear they’ll fall and hit their head.
You want them to go to school, but it means they will leave you. It means they’ll have 180 days away from you. And they might fall on the playground and skin their knees.
You want them to make friends, but it means someone else will influence them in ways you won’t anymore.
You want them to know what it’s like for a boy to make their heart beat faster, but you don’t want them to get their hearts broken.
You want them to enjoy their first kiss, but you don’t want it to go any further.
You want them to pursue their dreams, but your heart breaks at the thought of them leaving.
You want them to grow up, find their passion, but it’s so hard to let go.
Until you do.
Until you watch them fall in love. And the child that you held on your knee is in someone else’s arms and that’s their home now.
Or maybe they don’t fall in love, but they make a life for themselves far away and you watch them become who they were meant to be.
It’s strange when you realize you don’t know their wardrobe, you don’t know their friends, or what music they listen to in the car.
And even though somewhere that isn’t your house is home for them now, you can hardly contain your joy as you watch one make a home with their love — the same way you did all those years ago — and the other build the life she dreamed of and a promising career.
It’s a paradox that our greatest joy is both in holding them close and in letting them fly on their own. Yes, it’s ridiculously hard to let go. But it is so worth it.
Throughout our girls’ college years, we moved each of them at least three times. From home to dorm, dorm to apartment, and from apartment back home.
Today our oldest, Elizabeth, 25, moved again. This one is for real.
In fact, as I write this, she’s driving a U-Haul, towing her car, somewhere between Birmingham and Atlanta, on the way to Charleston, South Carolina. Which in and of itself is a major Mommy Freakout Moment.
But amid the anxiety is a swell of pride and a sense of excitement for her. She left our nest years ago, but today she flies far away.
Her move reminds me that our primary job as parents is to equip our children to live independently, and to prepare ourselves to loosen our grip as they pursue their dreams.
The hardest lesson for parents to learn is to hold our children more loosely with each passing year. The times we most wish to wrap them tightly in our arms to protect them from harm and struggle are the times it’s most essential to let go. It’s not easy. But I choose to be thankful — and a little proud — that we’ve raised a strong woman who can handle this challenge.
Elizabeth, a three-time marathon runner, ran the last 10 miles of her first marathon after badly spraining an ankle. Rather than quit, she kept running through the pain, and completed the race with a more-than-respectable time. She knows how to gather her strength, but rely on her faith to see her through adversity.
Not far from Aniston, Alabama, the U-Haul truck blew a tire. Every woman’s nightmare is to be stranded alone at night on a highway with car trouble, but Elizabeth kept her head, called for help, and is now on her way again, frustrated at the loss of travel time. She is strong and determined — she is not patient.
As difficult as it is to watch our children take risks, the rewards of watching them face uncertainty with courage as they run toward their dreams are manifold.
I’m letting go for real this time, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Look out, Charleston!
Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open. — Corrie ten Boom
I’ve noticed for the past week or so that I’ve felt inexplicably blue. Even though they come around every year, somehow the anniversaries always seems to sneak up on me. In 1993, my dad passed away suddenly on June 13, and in 1999, my sister-in-law was killed in a tragic car accident on June 9. So, even though I know that early June comes after late May, somehow it always takes me by surprise.
It was 20 years ago today that my daddy passed away. Elizabeth was four-and-a-half and she was devastated at the loss of her Dada. They were so close, and even now, at 24, she has memories of times shared with him.
Quite the artist even at an early age, she drew a picture of her Dada “going up to heaven” for my mom, which years later we had framed for her at Christmas. When Elizabeth was little she would remember, “When Dada was still on land … ” and sometimes we still say that we wish he were back “on land.”
He’s been gone a whole lifetime now. Enough time for my girls to grow up to be adults without him in their lives.
Here are some things he’s missed; one for each year he’s been gone, in no particular order.
The Internet — He was a lifelong learner. I get my ability to teach myself things from him. He’d have been endlessly fascinated by the Internet.
Email — I’m guessing this would have been a bit like the telephone, which he hated. He answered it when he had to. I think he wouldn’t have been a huge fan of email.
The iPhone — He’d have been an iPhone user for sure and would have loved downloading apps.
Windows — I think he’d have ended up being a Mac user, but the computer he was using at the time he died was pre-Windows.
The comeback of Apple — He had a Mac in the `90s, but got the PC due to compatibility issues with software. I think he’d have definitely been a Mac user. After all, he was a Betamax fan.
All but three of his nine grandchildren — He loved them so much and truly delighted in them. He spent quality time talking to them and teaching them. It breaks my heart that six of my nieces and nephews never shared the earth with him.
School — He never saw one of them start school. He’d have been much better at helping with math than I was.
Teenage years — I’m not sure how this would have gone; I know he’d have rolled his eyes at MmmBop and Justin Bieber would have made him barf.
Driving — Even as an adult, I hated driving with him in the car; he would constantly criticize my driving. In fact, no one could drive as well as he could, in his estimation. I bet my girls would have gotten away with much more than I ever did.
Boyfriends — Not sure how well he’d have done with boyfriends, but he was a great judge of character.
Graduations — Tears.
College — Tears.
Weddings — More tears. Yes, he was a crier, just like me.
Cheerleading — I think he’d have enjoyed watching them compete, but he’d also have given me tons of crap for how much time it took and how expensive it was. Still, seeing his granddaughters on ESPN would have thrilled him.
The death of my sister-in-law — I think he’d have been a tremendous support for my brother in a difficult time, and would be thrilled that he found love a second time. But it would have devastated him.
My breast cancer and my sister’s melanoma — He’d have been strong and reassuring for us, would have researched it and provided knowledgeable and educated counsel and encouragement. And, in private he’d have cried his eyes out.
My career change (from audiology to online communications) — He’d have been fully supportive; he always thought I should be a professional editor and often gave me orthodontic journal articles he was working on to edit.
Proms — I think he’d have gotten choked up to see the girls all dressed up like that.
The girls learning to water ski — as much as he loved the lake, this would have given him endless joy, and he’d have been happy to spend days on end pulling them. He was especially good at dragging the rope right to the skier, so they’d have been spoiled.
Game Six of the 2011 World Series — Oh, how I wish I could have shared that with him. Not to mention the win.
The loss becomes less acute over the years, but the wistful feelings never quite go away. There’s always the wish that he could have shared in the joyful times, the craving for his comfort in the trials, and the desire for his wise counsel in the midst of important decisions.
If I could talk to him today, I’d say,
Daddy, congratulations on your 20th anniversary in heaven. I can’t imagine how awesome it must be. We miss you every day, think of you often and heed your wise words more than you ever knew we would. You were loved, respected, and revered by many, and, now missed by many. You wouldn’t believe how grown up the girls are, and how Little Tik and Teeny Tik (my spelling because this is my website) have grown up to be brilliant, beautiful young women you’d be so proud of. And Jim could really use your encouragement right now with this job thing, because it sucks. And, yeah, I know you’d probably say “potty mouth” for that, but, sorry, it just does. And, Daddy, our Cardinals are doing so great, and I remember everything you ever taught me, how you’d explain things as we watched. So now I explain them to Jim while we watch the games, like you did for me. And I’ve still never seen anyone hit for a cycle.
Most of all, even though I miss you terribly, I love you too much to wish you were anywhere but Heaven. Tell Stan the Man hi for me, ok? I’ll see you again someday.
My youngest baby is 21 today. It makes me a little misty eyed, I’m not gonna lie.
I tried to resist the motherly instincts last night when she told me she was going out at midnight to buy her first legal drink.
Me: Be careful. Are you taking Ethan (longtime boyfriend) with you? Her: Yep! Me: Well, have fun.
(Ethan is big and strong and not the sort of guy you want to mess with. And very protective.)
See how well that went?
Don’t get me wrong; I love having adult children. I love the adult conversations, and it makes me happy to see the great women they’ve both become. But it’s real, on-paper, legal confirmation that this phase of my life is over.
Which is awful and awesome. It’s the end of being needed in many ways, but it’s better to be wanted anyway.
Parenthood is a long journey, and I’m not sure you ever really reach a destination in the sense that the trip is over. But I’m loving where I am now.
I love the laughter, the fun, and the friendship. The adult relationship that isn’t based on dependence, but on love, commitment and many, many shared memories. The ease of being with people who know you inside and out, have seen you in a swimsuit and without makeup and still love you.
It’s been an incredible journey. The best/worst, most rewarding/hardest most heart-rending/touching journey of all, I think. I’ve made mistakes, but I’ve done my best and I have no regrets.
I’ve never made a quilt, but I think parenthood is how I imagine it would be, and someday I will make one. It’s a panoply of squares, each of which represents a smile, a hug or a tear, all joined together into one beautiful piece. If the last 24 years of my life are that quilt, I’m grateful for one so beautiful, that covers me when there is a chill and comforts me when I cry.
Here’s to you, girls, and to the next 24 years together.
I’ve felt unusually emotional the past couple of days, without really knowing why. It hit me sometime yesterday while I was trying to think through something at work. I couldn’t put my finger on it then, but now I think I know.
If you’re a mom, you feel what your children feel. When they are tiny and they have colic and cry, you’re at least as miserable as they are.
When they’re a little older and it’s chickenpox, ear infections, strep or a broken bone, you hurt too.
When they go to junior high and they feel like they don’t fit in, or the kids are mean, you remember when you felt the same way and you feel it all over again, but this time it’s worse because it’s your child.
The first time they fall in love and their heart breaks, yours breaks too.
You’re excited with and for them as they leave the nest, even though there’s an empty room in your home and a place in your heart that aches for them just a tiny bit.
As you watch them build their own lives and follow their dreams, their dreams become just a little bit yours, too.
I think that explains why, when I watched my oldest, Elizabeth, cross the finish line for her first marathon, I could not stop the tears. Thinking about the commitment, sacrifice and dedication it takes to complete 26.2 miles amazed me, but thinking about what that finish line meant to her brought the lump to my throat.
And maybe it explains why there may be a tear or two in a few hours when I see my youngest, Sara Ann, off to Zambia for a mission trip, which she has dreamed of since middle school. The fact that what she’s wanted for this long is to go to Africa and serve humbles me and fills me with admiration.
I don’t live through them, but being part of their adult lives is fulfilling in a way I never anticipated when they were small and I didn’t want them to grow up.
We don’t travel a lot and we don’t take many long vacations, so this last week has been a little wild and epically wonderful.
First, Jim and I took a quick trip to St. Louis for a Cardinal game. We drove up on Tuesday for that evening’s game, arrived early in the afternoon and had a couple of drinks at the 26th-floor bar at our hotel before walking across the street to Busch Stadium.
I still get emotional when I walk into Busch Stadium. Maybe it’s the sheer excitement of the in-person experience, the enormity of the World Series victory or the thrill of the crowd and the crack of the bat you don’t get from a TV broadcast. But I think it’s more than that. It takes me back to days when I sat next to my dad in the old Busch Stadium. He taught me to use the scorecard to keep up with every play, told me about his favorite player, Stan Musial and explained the finer points of the game as it unfolded.
We saw an incredible game, with a dream of a pitching matchup: Cardinal ace Adam Wainright vs. 2011 Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw with the Los Angeles Dodgers. As much as I despise the heat, the 102-degree game time temperature didn’t matter. The game was exciting and the Cardinals won. We collapsed in our cool hotel room afterwards, enjoyed a good night’s sleep and drove home on Wednesday.
Back to reality, to the daily routine and the Cardinals on TV — that night in an even hotter game (104 at game time) that went into extra innings.
This weekend we took the girls and their boyfriends to the lake. It’s a lot of fun to have adult children and our girls and the guys they have chosen are all genuinely great young people that we enjoy spending time with. We spent the entire day on the boat, swimming, napping, relaxing and just enjoying the company of the ones we love most. We watched a beautiful sunset on the lake.
There was some action-packed inner tubing that unfortunately ended with a trip to the emergency room when Elizabeth perforated her eardrum. She’s been in a lot of pain and we weren’t able to go back out on the lake on Sunday, but the girls and I had a nice leisurely trip to Wal-Mart while the boys unloaded and covered the boat.
Left to right: JP, Elizabeth, Sara Ann, Ethan
Few things go as smoothly as planned. What I love about our family is that even when they don’t, we find a way to enjoy each other even in Wal-Mart.
Parents of young kids, take heart. Your best times with your kids are yet to come. One day we’re changing diapers, the next we’re sending them off to senior prom and the next we’re discussing real-life issues and challenges with people we’ve come to respect and admire for their intelligence and character. Enjoy every phase and don’t dread the next; there is goodness ahead.
Yesterday was an epic day in my baseball world. We went to AutoZone Park to enjoy a Redbirds baseball game, some postgame fireworks and the main attraction, the World Series trophy. The same trophy former manager Tony LaRussa held proudly after the historic 2011 series; that was displayed on the field at Busch Stadium on Opening Day, next to Lou Brock, Bob Gibson and other Cardinal greats.
Trophy close-up
It represents an incredible comeback triumph, the thrill of watching it unfold and an evening that has come to be known simply as Game Six.
My sister and her family joined us for the game and fireworks, but the real goodness was standing inches from the trophy and reliving those moments together.
A very long time ago, when I had a tiny baby, someone told me that successful parenting is a series of letting go moments. I didn’t believe it then. But now that I’ve lived it, I know it’s true.
I remember holding her, rocking her, inhaling the baby smells, feeling her little head nestling on my shoulder and thinking there was no way I was ever letting go.
Then one day I held her in my lap and felt her pull away, lean forward and try to sit up on her own. I let go and she sat up.
A few months later, I let her pull up on the coffee table and stand, sort of, on her own two feet.
Then she took a step, by herself, without my hand in hers.
After that, she learned to use the potty and sleep in a big-girl bed. She wanted to dress herself and she chose some interesting combinations of clothing. We took her to church in an outfit that didn’t match and we didn’t (much) care what anyone thought.
It seemed only moments later when I drove her to preschool, stopped the car and watched as she hopped out the door to go fingerpaint, run on the playground and listen to someone else read to her.
Soon she began Kindergarten — all day long. She learned to read and to write her name. And while she still wanted me to read to her occasionally, most of the time she wanted to read to her baby dolls and stuffed animals.
When it was time for the middle school dance, I couldn’t believe I was letting her go. To a dance? With a boy? But I helped her choose the perfect dress, watched her curl her hair and put on just a little blush, lip gloss, the tiniest bit of mascara and shoes with heels that were way too high. And she was beautiful.
Her freshman year, it was her first high school dance. She wore a long red dress and she looked way too grown up. But I let her go and after the dance, in the wee hours of the morning, she told me about her first kiss.
We taught her to drive cautiously and to concentrate on the road, knowing full well that when driver’s permit became license, away from our watchful eyes she would turn up the music and drive too fast and ride with boys. We were scared to death, but we watched her drive away.
All too soon we packed the car with her belongings and moved her into a tiny dorm room to live with another girl she barely knew. We helped her arrange her room, find a place for the mini-fridge and then I hugged her, afraid to let go, because I knew I was letting go for real this time.
A year or so later, we moved her into her first apartment. We bought a couch, a TV, a bed, gave her hand-me-downs from the attic, helped her hang pictures and cautioned her to always lock the door. Somewhere else became her home; now she comes to visit. When it’s time to go, she says, “I have to go home.”
One day, she’ll hold onto Jim’s arm as he escorts her down the aisle. She’ll let go and take the hand of a young man who loves her enough to never let go. Then someday she’ll become a mother and she’ll read this post and understand.
And that’s parenthood. It’s okay to let go. All of the growth is in the letting go.
For the past few years, I’ve made a complete Thanksgiving dinner at our house before we celebrate with extended family. It’s the one time each year we get out the china, silver and Waterford crystal and eat by candlelight in the dining room. It takes all day to prepare the turkey, dressing, side dishes and pumpkin pie and it’s always been one of my favorite times of the holiday season.
This year was different. My work schedule didn’t allow the time to make the dinner, but we were not willing to give up the special family evening. So instead of making turkey and dressing, I made a reservation at one of our favorite east Memphis spots, The Grove Grill. They have this cozy private dining room that was perfect for the six of us: Jim and me, our girls and their long-time boyfriends.
Part of our tradition at the table is a time of sharing the things we’re thankful for, but this year the cliche, “I’m thankful for my family and friends” answers wouldn’t do. So as our appetizers were served, I gave notice: no generic answers this year. Instead we would express to each person, individually, the things we’re thankful for about them.
I thought the younger folks would roll their eyes at my corny suggestion; instead, everyone shared heartfelt and meaningful sentiments, laced with laughter and a few tears. Things we probably wouldn’t have said to one another without the prompting of corny old Mom.
Sometimes we don’t share those thoughts as readily as we should; we take for granted the ones we should treasure and appreciate the most.
Here’s a challenge for this holiday season: sit around a table with those you love. No TV, no cell phones, no distractions, just eye contact. Say the unsaid, share the thoughts that have remained unexpressed for the sake of pride or the fear of awkwardness. Above all gifts, let the warmth of love light your holiday season.
