Tag: sons

This is so ; loosing my place via

psychiatric abuse ; medicated for

” problematic marriage ”

My firstborn made me a mother.

My second son made me an advocate.

My third son made me a mom.

You’re probably wondering what the difference is between these three.

A mother is all straight spine and arched brow. A we-do-not-eat-cookies-before-dinner sort of thing.

An advocate is a voice. She speaks for the boy who can’t find the words.

And a mom? A mom is a little more playful. She leaves dishes in the sink and plays cards at the table. She lets teenagers build beds out of plywood and stocks soup for sick days.

Everywhere I look is yellow.

Yellow grass, yellow sun, yellowjackets buzzing in the wilting yellow flowers.

All around me, summer is holding its breath.

My third son leaves for college next month. I can tell I’m beginning to exhaust people about this – a quality I was often warned about as a child. You wear people out too much.

Whenever I see Charlie’s gangly frame now – on the baseball field, standing in the kitchen eating a sandwich, walking down the driveway to get the mail – I think of his junior year in high school.

Stay afloat.

Night after night, this is what we told him. When he woke us at dawn, panicked and frantic. When he couldn’t eat, sleep, study, or laugh. When he had trouble simply getting out of bed each morning.

Where did he go?

This is the question I asked myself.

He turned to holiday decorations. Alone in the cold, he hung hundreds of Christmas lights, hoping to forget a girl. Night after night, he stood atop a latter and looped the strands through trees and over eaves.

A heart-shaped rock from the ball field. This became my most precious gift, offered in an offhand way after I missed a game. Gently, I placed it on the bookshelf in my bedroom.

As winter waged its private war within him, it became my touchstone, my silent apology, my gathering spot for what may lay ahead. Every morning I placed two fingers on it and took a deep breath.

Through it all, the trees maintained their sparkle. Until one night we found him sitting on the cold, hard ground beneath their shadowy branches, trembling and afraid that all was lost. We could not coax him back inside the house. From the window I watched father embrace son in a deep bear hug as they both slowly made their way up the driveway.

As the snow melted and the grass stood straight again, slowly, his spark returned. There is no magic to the healing beyond the basics—sleep, food, and time. Heartache demands we address our most primal needs first. It is rarely undone overnight.

One spring afternoon, I peered out the window. I saw a silhouette on a ladder. The air was aglow with the breath and blaze of a hundred bulbs amongst branches, strung by a dark-haired boy trying to find his way. With a new sky as his backdrop, he lifted strand after strand and coiled them together over one arm. He dropped them into the box at his feet—winter’s stars gone silent.

Here, in the yellow light, the trees and the stars feel far away. Yet still so close.

Stay.

This is what I long to say.

Stay here, in the bed you built.

Stay here in the kitchen with the soup and the grilled cheese.

Stay, even though I know it is impossible.

What people don’t tell you is one day you lose your children in a most exquisitely tender way.

I said no to cookies.

I spoke for the boy without words.

I chased.

I made so many mistakes.

Motherhood. No one departs unshaken.