Fireworks and Waterworks

There are two kinds of mothers, and they are most easily identified on the first day of school.  One kind of mother can't stop crying.  The other kind of mother is dancing the jig.  

I have always been a dancing gal, a bye-bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out, write when you get work kind of Mom.  I love the summer, LOVE IT, but when it's over, I am glad to see my boys take those important steps towards independence.  (And, let's face it, I'm glad to have the house to myself once more.)
        But this summer is different.  My oldest has graduated from high school, and as we round the corner and take the last lap before he leaves for college, I’ve become the weepy one.

Lately, everything makes me cry.  It was fine to cry at the volleyball banquet when the coach spoke about my son’s leadership and character.  It was sentimental to cry watching my son and his best friends embrace in their tuxedos, going to the Prom.  And the entire Welch-Ryan Arena was teary at graduation, as they called the names of boys and girls I’ve known since kindergarten.

I cried appropriately all spring.  But then I cried at the Fourth of July fireworks.  

My husband, who is still startled by this change, asked what the hell was wrong with me, and I asked him, “When did Robby stop holding my hand?”

I saw hundreds of mothers down at the beach for the fireworks, and they were all holding children’s hands.  It’s an easy place to get lost, with so many people, and it’s a scary place for a mother, being so close to the lake.
          My son is eighteen years old now.  He’s 6’3, over 200 pounds.  And although I do remember that he held my hand for an awfully long time, so long in fact that my husband was worried that the other boys would make fun of him, he does not hold my hand anymore. 

I remember those chubby brown fingers fitting perfectly into my palm, I remember their stickiness, and the bitten nails.  I can’t remember the last time Robby held my hand, and of course there was no way to know it was the last, and it’s probably just as well or I would have cried then too. 

These days our refrigerator is plastered with his likeness. It is a shrine to him—the celebration of these last precious months that we will be together before he goes away to college.  My younger son came into the kitchen the other day and asked, “Do I even live here?” and I knew what he meant.  His brother has been the headliner for the past few months, garnering all the accolades of a successful high school career.  He has grown up to be a magnificent young man, and it’s a great irony that now that the hard work is done, he is leaving.

Separation anxiety, a term commonly used when talking about pre-schoolers, is now the diagnosis of pre-college parents. 

I talk to other mothers who have survived it.  They speak of those first weeks, crying in the empty bedroom, touching the trophies, smelling the pillows.  We line up the stuffed animals on the shelves.  We read the spines of the books. We stick close to these remnants of an old life. Like us, these well-loved treasures are left behind. 

This fall as I leave my sweet boy in front of his dormitory, I will have the Kleenex tucked into my sleeve as I say goodbye. As our car pulls away, my tears will begin.
            And this time, my son will be dancing the jig.