This is unexpected.  The nest has been empty for quite some time now.  We’ve even moved the nest!   Why does the thought of Jeff, the youngest of our three sons, sleeping in Minnesota tonight cause me to grieve in a deep new way?  Why am I holding back the tears?  Grief is a normal and not necessarily bad human emotion.  It is merely what we feel when something has changed, whether it be losing a loved one to death or moving or even finding out a favorite lipstick color has been discontinued – it’s only a matter of degree – and it is the emotion that helps us continue living even after our favorite lipstick has been discontinued.

A mother never stops being a mother.  The phone calls for advice from my sons still roll in from time to time, often coming from an aisle in the grocery store wondering about an ingredient for a planned meal that might approximate something I’ve made in the past.  I don’t worry as when they were all under my roof, but I do find myself taking a deep breath and having faith that everything will be all right. (That’s an inside family joke – Mom always says “I hope everything will be all right.”  I’ve just made a lateral move to one of the other three Catholic virtues – faith.)  In the day to day of my life I don’t think about the past of parenthood too much.  I am proud of them and prouder even more that I am blossoming into a new person as well. The wistfulness of how quickly the time went raising them has morphed into dismay at how little time there is to get everything done during the day just for me.

But this.  This is a different feeling altogether.  All three are, as of Jeff’s arrival in Minnesota tonight, officially adults now. Independent. The amazing journey that began sometime in July, 1984 when Joe was conceived, the daunting responsibility of delivering little persons from birth to the doors of adulthood to the best of my ability is complete.  I’m stunned.  I am crying and I’m not sure why.

It is as if I have awakened from a dream.  It all seems so impossible now, so unreal.  The diapers, the constant mess in the house, the noise, the noise and did I mention the noise? The house festooned with children’s artwork, the closets full of God-only-knows-what, the stash of craft supplies, the dog and the boys running through the house like maniacs, the crazy busy elementary school years, the laundry, in short – the chaos.  Until tonight, there was always a continuous thread leading back to that, but like finishing sewing on a button, the knot has been tied, the thread cut.  The button remains, but without my hand to steady it as I attach it to the sleeve, without my decision about whether to take one more pass with the thread to make sure it is secure.

Tomorrow I will feel better.  We are all very close.  The real connection remains…the needle and thread is always there just in case.

But tonight, I find myself truly understanding the meaning of the book that became popular when my boys were very young.  The book was by Robert Munsch.  The title:  I’ll Love You Forever  The hook:

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”

Except not really.  I’ll love them forever and like them for always, but now they are all my grown men.  I think I cry because there is no way I can ever thank them for the amazing thing they did while I was raising them: they raised me.  Only now has that truth hit me, as I walk through the door of my own new stage of adulthood, as their peer.