I said goodbye to my oldest son today, for the third time in as many years, and I have no idea when I will see him again… Ruben has been living in New Zealand, and he had come back to visit for a month, along with his girlfriend, Janine. It was a visit that was much anticipated by all of us, and a month has never flown by so fast.
The first time Ruben went to New Zealand, he was nineteen. We had been traveling as a family from the time he was born, and so he was a seasoned traveler, but other than a couple of weeks in Europe with his history class during his senior year, he had never been on any significant trips without at least one of us. It was nerve-wracking to watch him walk away from us in the airport, headed to a country none of us had ever been to, to meet a girl he had never seen in person. He stayed there two months, fell in love, then returned home to begin the challenge of a long distance romance. Janine came and stayed with us twice, and we all grew to love her. The second time we said goodbye, he was moving to New Zealand to start a new life with her.
When they arrived home for this visit, they had a full agenda planned. I was determined not to be a meddler in his plans, but was anxious to spend as much time with him as I could. It had been eighteen months since we had seen him last. My husband and I work during the week, and our younger son, Carter, is in high school, so weekends were really the only time we had to spend with them. They had only been here four days, when they took off on a long weekend with friends to Orcas Island. The next weekend, they took off with friends again, to Cannon Beach. The third weekend, they had friends come to our house to stay. While it was fun to see his friends again, who are like a bunch of giant 22-year old puppies, the weekend involved fire, bodies tumbling down stairs, broken glass, and borrowed blankets, but much laughter and fun. Never mind the inexplicable beer and blood stains on the wall, my frayed nerves, lack of sleep, and emptied pantry…
The fourth weekend, we had prearranged for them to accompany us on a road trip to attend a baseball tournament that Carter was playing in, a five-hour drive from our home. Marc decided it would be best to rent a car that was big enough to fit all five of us, our luggage, the golf clubs and baseball bag. I was very excited at the thought of having them all to myself, essentially trapped in the vehicle with me, and I was not disappointed.
The trip there was filled with jokes, laughter, endless hours of “Squabble” (travel “Scrabble”, in which the rules and words are fluid, and challenges cannot be solved with Google because there is no Wi-Fi in the middle of nowhere, and so the best actor wins, or the loser is the one who is worn down first). They called each other funny names, both real and improvised, “Duende” and “Duendito” (elf and tiny elf) being just a couple, every one eliciting another round of giggling. We marveled at the scenery, listened to music. The boys played games, sang “Happy Birthday” to Janine in Spanish, and found inventive ways to pester each other. We topped the first day off with a round of golf at a beautiful course they had wanted to play for years. We enjoyed meals together, good baseball and golf were played and watched, and the sunshine made frequent enough appearances to keep us happy outside. We visited old friends, the boys wandered the campus of our alma mater, Washington State University, with friends who are current students, and we tried to subtly convince Carter he should be a Cougar, and not a Husky. Late on Sunday, after the last baseball game wrapped up, we ignored the dictates of common sense and good parenting, as well as the fact that it was a school night and we still had a five hour drive ahead of us, and played another round of golf. The course was scenic and challenging, and Carter was delighted to play again at a course he was too young to remember having played before. Janine and I followed along in our own cart, making our own fun by looking for birds, bunnies, dragon flies and golf balls, making surprise pro shop purchases for the boys, taking their pictures, identifying plants, and watching a herd of colts chase each other around a field. The drive home was peaceful, albeit late, and as I drove and everyone else slept, I reflected on how much I had cherished each and every second of the four days of having my little family together again.
As Ruben and Janine’s departure date grew closer, and we frantically tried to fill every remaining minute of the last few days with fun and together time, I began to get melancholy. Being June, the days included graduations, birthday parties, and dinner gatherings with extended family. I spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be a mother. About the beginning, the middle, and the end stages of motherhood. It seemed that everywhere I went, I was presented with some scenario that offered a new perspective on what it means to be a mother, what a mother can mean to a family, and the fragile balance of mothering and being mothered…
The commencement speaker at my nephew’s graduation ceremony spoke eloquently about losing her mother to cancer when she was eleven, becoming a substance abuser, and then finding a way to pull herself up and out, to go on and become an active participant in her own life and earn a full-ride college scholarship. I watched mothers in the audience at that graduation ceremony, mothers who are going through emerging stages of their own lives, and I pondered how watching the ceremony through the filter of those stages affected them, as they watched the graduates enter a new stage of their lives. I could almost read the mind of the mother who had not been sure her son would survive to see graduation. At another gathering, I watched an elderly mother tend to an adult son who has suffered a catastrophic health crisis, and thought about how the call of duty to mothering knows no deadline. I watched another mother, suddenly dealing with a health crisis of her own, and I cataloged how that made a difference in the way she watched and interacted with her own children and grandchildren. I watched my pregnant niece, who had just been sent home from the hospital for a second time, and was having contractions while she ate dinner and joked with family, and I was amazed at how calm she was.
I have certain scenes in my life where, if I were a movie director, said scenes would make up the “life passing before your eyes” segment of a dramatic production. One memory is of a time when Marc and I took Ruben, who was three at the time, on a long weekend biking trip to Lopez Island. It was Fall, and the weekend was sunny, cool and crisp. We set out on an early ride to Shark Reef, a magical destination where you can sit on a rocky outcropping, and the water surges directly below you, filled with giant kelp, and sea lions roiling and splashing as they catch salmon just below your feet. The memory, however, is of the ride there. We were pedaling down a forest road, riding into the morning sun, which was shining down between the tall trees that surrounded us. My husband’s bike had a tow-along attachment, so Ruben could ride behind him. I followed behind them on my own bike, keeping a careful watch on the small human, who was pedaling furiously and holding on to his handlebars for dear life. He had on his tiny helmet, a forest green fleece jacket, and his tiny man-pants. As I watched him, I caught sight of a long strand of spider silk, about fifteen feet in length, trailing from his helmet. I was mesmerized by the sight of it, dancing in the breeze and sparkling in the sunlight. I was filled with the sense that this glistening spider web was a visible representation of the joy and exuberance of this tiny person, leaking out from him and flowing to me, the heartstring connecting us. A banner of love in our little family parade.
Another favorite memory is the day Carter was born. He was delivered by C-section, at a predetermined early morning hour. I spent most of the day recovering from the surgery, and by evening, I had perked up. It was very late, and Marc and Ruben had gone home. Carter was staying in the room with me, and I sat in bed with him on my lap, facing me. We gazed at each other carefully, making mental note that we were both night owls. I marveled at his full head of hair, and how big his hands were. I was amused by his ears, which had tiny points to them. Hidden by his hair, and therefore easy to miss, I was tickled to discover that from the points of his ears, he had two-inch tufts of hair that curved out, like a puffin. As I studied him, I could feel the person he was to become, and though in recent years, it seems like he belongs more to my husband than to me, I knew that night that he would always be my tiny duende with the pointy ears and strong hands.
I think about the lessons I have learned and relearned recently. That when brothers are together, it is like they are three and ten again, or seven and fourteen, and it does not matter how much time has passed since they were last together. That road trips are fun, that laughter is the best music, that you are never too old to learn a new language or sing out loud with the radio, or laugh at farts, both real and improvised. That you can make your own fun, and find something interesting everywhere and anywhere. That when families gather, there is love and history and memories, and new chapters being written, new memories being made. That when our children are small, we cannot imagine a life in which they are not there, every day, and when that time comes, it takes our breath away. That our lives can change with a puff of wind, and our roles as mothers can change just as quickly. That when it comes to being a mother, there may be a beginning and a middle, but there is no end.
I think about my sons, and wonder for the millionth time whether I hold on too tight, or not tight enough. When I finally pulled myself together enough last night to go into the room where Ruben and Janine were packing, to say goodnight, I gave Ruben a big hug, and he hugged me back. I realized that somehow, I must have found the right balance over the years, because suddenly he was the one mothering me, telling me it would be okay, and I was the first to let go of the hug. I am sitting here now thinking about Carter, sleeping in the next room, and how little time I have left with him under the same roof. I am thinking about Ruben, flying through the night with his love, back to the place they now call home, and how far away the other side of our planet is. I think about that magic strand of spider silk, and I envision now that it comes from me, and it is so long that it reaches around the globe, and so strong that it can never be broken…the heartstring that connects me to my sons, no matter how far away they travel.
Ruben’s funny Spanish nickname when he was a baby was “Entonces” (“then”) which makes zero sense, but was fitting and funny, nonetheless…
Current photos by Stephanie Dyane
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