Mom's Job Not Over

The Boston Herald

I thought I would feel terrible. I thought I would cry. That's what I used to do when my son had a birthday.

When he turned one, I wanted him to be six months again so he would be content to lie in my arms. And when he turned two, I wanted him to be one so I could watch, for a second time, his first steps. Most of his life I've been like this, wishing time would slow down, wishing he would take a few giant steps backward and stay little a little longer.

Grow up and leave me? I never believed he would.

I remember teaching him the words to "I Won't Grow Up," the pair of us marching around the house singing along with Mary Martin on the old stereo that sits in the cellar now, a relic from these long ago times. "I won't grow up. I don't want to go to school. Just to learn to be a parrot. And recite a silly rule.”   All that love and conditioning and he grew up anyway.

He couldn't wait for the first day of school. The September he was almost six, he walked out the door oblivious to all the "I won't grow up" words I had drilled in his head. He leaped up the steps of the school bus, the way a puppy charges when there's a knock at the door. "What will I do without Robbie?" his younger sister asked.

What would I do?

It's difficult now to remember the hollowness of those first days without him. I played Candy Land and War with my daughter and we went shopping and visited friends but all the while my heart was with my son. I tried to picture him at his desk. What was he doing? Did his teacher like him? Had he made friends? Was he  sad?  Was he lonely?  Would he  raise  his  hand if he had to go to the bathroom? Was he missing me?

It's amazing how quickly you get used to things. Within weeks I'd adapted. The school bus and his leaving became part of my life. Over the years I became melancholy only in September, when his leaving, when all my children's leaving, became new again.

Now I look back over time and struggle to recall all the details of those school days. There were 180 of them every year: 180 first-grade lunches, 180 second-grade goodbye kisses, 180 third-grade waves to the bus - all new and different. And yet they blend. I have to search through photographs to recall how my son looked when he was 7, 9, 11. And even with the pictures in hand, I can't get the moments back.

How old was he when five o'clock found him camped out in front of the television singing "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood"? How old was he when our entire family drove up and down the streets of New York City in search of Spiderman? How old was he when Spiderman gave way to Star Wars and Star Wars gave way to Miami Vice? What happened to the millions of ordinary moments that weren't captured on film? Where did 21 years go? 

"How old are your children?" people ask.

"Four and two," I used to say. "Five and three. Eight, six and one. Nine. Seven and two.” How I loved those small numbers and how smug I was believing that they would stay small forever. Now I say 21, 19 and 13 and feel as if I'm not a real mother anymore.

Twenty-one and 19 are adults. Only 13 still qualifies as a child.

So I should be sad that my son is turning 21. I loved having small children. I miss Fisher Price people. 

And yet, strangely, curiously, I am amazed and proud and humbled.  A song comes to mind: "What have I ever done to deserve even one of the pleasures I've known?” Some people spend their whole lives at a job and at the end someone throws a party and presents them with a watch or a plaque. And the next day another someone fills their shoes, sits at their desk and does what they'd always done.

Mothering isn't like this. My son is a man now but this doesn't mean my job is over and that he doesn't need me anymore. He does. He always will. Just in different ways.