I pilot the car to the curb, hit the button to open the tailgate, and hop out. She walks behind the car, grabs her suitcase, hugs me. “I love you,” I say, kissing her cheek. “Love you too, Mom.”
I watch her stroll, tall and confident, through the double doors of the terminal. I wave but she doesn’t turn around.
I get back in the car and have a moment, fighting emotions. Unbidden memories flood, and I’m back in a parking lot at Azusa Pacific University, having just left her in the freshman dorm. At that moment, twelve years ago, I sobbed. Now, I simply feel an ache, a longing. I put the car in drive.
She turns 30 today. She and her husband visited for the weekend to attend a friend’s wedding. She’ll go home to California for a few days, then leave for another trip.
I raised her to be independent, a wanderer. She chose to go to school 2000 miles away, and of course, didn’t come back home after college. She’s been to more than 20 countries on five continents. She is a wanderer, in the best, most confident, way.
I remember her and her brother as little kids, tooling through the airport pulling their tiny Disney-bedecked roller board suitcases. We’d get through security, and I’d tell her, “Okay, we’re gate H-20. Can you read the signs and find our gate?” From about age 6, she navigated O’Hare with confidence.
Today, she will get on a plane with a friend, celebrating the dawn of their fourth decade on this planet with an international journey.
Although we live far apart, I’m lucky. I see my daughter frequently. We skied together last month in Montana. I’m going to California to visit my parents next month and will see her again then. We travel together almost every month during ski season and see each other every few months the rest of the year. She and her husband both work full time but manage with remote work to find ways to travel frequently.
But there is something distinctly sweet about having her at home. Going for a run in the woods together. Sitting close on the couch reading. Cooking her favorites for her—for days before her arrival, and while she’s there. When I welcome my wandering daughter home, something clicks into alignment in my heart.
Even Sunday morning, just knowing she was up in her bed, sleeping in, brought a quiet contentment. As a mom, it’s hard to explain how seeing my daughter on a ski weekend is different from having her home. I love both experiences, but …
I have friends whose kids, for one reason or another, have boomeranged back home, not just for a visit, but for a good long while. I don’t necessarily want that, in this season of my life.
I am proud of both of my children’s independence. Both kids have a good job, a home, a life that is separate from mine. I’m grateful that she and her brother are both “adulting” so proficiently. I’m in awe of their competence and independence—even though I was very intentional about coaching my kids toward that. The goal of parenting was to work myself out of a job, so to speak. And that’s what happened.
But I still miss her (and her brother). I want to be around my kids, to connect with them. Sometimes missing them manifests as a literal tightness in my chest, a deep longing. Being with them brings me great joy.
Perhaps because my first-born is turning 30, I’m feeling emotionally achy. I’m grateful that even as she embarks on a journey, my husband and I will also be traveling again, to spend a weekend our son and his fiancé. (Who also live far from us.)
Parenting adult children requires me to trust, to allow them to wander. It provides an opportunity: to welcome them when I can, but to hold that privilege loosely. To remind myself that this was the goal, and embrace both the joy and the ache of this season.
I completely resonate! While I’m thankful my 3 sons are doing well and thriving independently, I cannot ignore the ache when it’s time to say “goodbye “ when they come to visit. There are days and moments I wish for the past when they were all under my feet. Then I jolt myself to the present and admit, “uh, Not really. I rejoice that my husband and I are seeing the fruit of our labor, in spite of mistakes.”
When the kids were in high school we had friends who decried teens graduating and going off somewhere. My wife came up with a response: “You raise ‘em up to move ‘em out.” That became our motto. It’s not that I don’t want the kids around. I love spending time with them. In fact, our son came over last night and cooked dinner. So not only did we raise the kids to move them along, we raised them right! ;-)