Missing the Kids They Used to Be

The Boston Herald

It's my fault. I always liked them too much. I never understood when people said, "Aren't you glad vacation is over?" or "Oh, no, another snow day. The kids are home again.” Even when they were small and awoke ready to play in the middle of the night, even when they cried every time I attempted to go out, I always thought how lucky I was that they cried for me.

I had wanted them for so long. I wanted them all the time I was a child. I kept wishing on stars for a brother or sister, and my mother kept having babies, but they came too soon and she'd return from the hospital with empty arms. 

I was so much luckier. I had three babies and though they're all grown now, I'm not complaining because I love the adults they've become. I love not pleading with them to clean up their rooms, and to please call when they get where they're going, and to eat what's on their plates, and to shut off the TV and do their homework.  I love phoning them and hearing about their lives . I love that they phone me. I visit their apartments or dorm and leave my dirty dishes in their sinks and say, "I'm getting even," and they smile. They are my friends and my confidants and I feel privileged that I'm still in the front row in their lives.

But sometimes, even now, even though they've been grown and gone long enough for me to have adjusted - everyone talks about how you adjust, how you eventually love your life without your kids - I miss who they were.

I miss wilted dandelions clutched in small hands. I miss the smell  of spring in their hair. I miss dancing school, and Little League and "Mama, watch me do a hand stand!" and "Wanna play ball?"

I used to miss them constantly. But I've learned how not to be sad. I keep the baby books and the photo albums and all the old school papers tucked in boxes in a closet. I know I'm safe from reverie as long as they are there. 

But last weekend, the middle child came home to clean her room, the one she moved out of a year ago. It was time, she said, to sort through old papers and cards and photos and stuffed animals and decide which to keep and which to throw away.

"You're on your own," I told her. I wanted no part of any trip down memory lane. 

So she cleaned, and I stayed away and never even questioned what she was keeping or what she was discarding because the truth is I didn't want to  know.

But she found something of mine among her things, and she left it on my bureau.  I didn't notice it until the next morning and then it was the first thing I saw, and it was achingly familiar but so completely out of another time that it moved me to tears.

You never know how much you miss something until it's right there in front of you: your grandmother in a picture you've never seen before, your mother's voice on a record you forgot you had.

On my bureau was a tiny hand-made card. My children used to make these cards all the time and slip them under my pillow or under my door. And I used to write them notes and put them in their lunch bags.

This was one of theirs. White paper torn into rectangles and stapled together. Magic Marker lettering. "To Mom" - then a heart - then "I Love You.” I picked it up and turned the page and there was a bigger heart and a poem: "Roses are Red. Violets are Blue. Light beer from Miller. I love you.” "Dear Mom, I love you. Happy Birthday, from Rob." And then, in conclusion, a full page heart with "I love you" inside.

I laughed and I cried. What a gift, small but huge, then and now.

It shouldn't hurt to remember happy times, but it does.