I watch you walk away from me, wheeling your suitcase, through the double doors. I watch you until I can’t see you anymore. I try to put my car into ‘drive,’ but something starts from deep inside me and I start to wail. I cry as I sit there in front of the airport, wondering if security will come by, knock on my window and ask me to leave. Bill puts his hand on my arm and tell me he loves me, and that everything will be all right. “I know, sweetie,” I tell him, “it’s okay. It’s okay that I love your sister this much that it makes me cry this hard. That’s a beautiful thing.” I keep crying until I can feel that pain recede a little bit enough to see the road in front of me.
I’m so happy that you’re in England now, doing what you want and need to do, but when Bill played “Cristoferi’s Dream” on his phone I felt your whole essence, your whole being-ness, in one complete feeling in my heart. I’ve always said that it’s difficult to have children because when they’re born they get a piece of your heart where they stay. I remember when I first felt you move inside of me. You felt like little butterfly wings. I was so entranced I sat there for over an hour on my bed, just holding my stomach, amazed. If I let myself, I can see you in your crib as a newborn, me sitting beside you with my hand on your little pink onesied back, just watching you, wanting to remember that moment because I knew it would go by too fast. I remember you wearing your leotard and tights everywhere, tutu and all. You looked fabulous. I remember you grabbing your Aunt Lonnie’s hand and putting it firmly on your newborn brother’s back and saying, “Ho non the baby.” I remember I remember.
I’m afraid to say that I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over you leaving home after high school. I would like to say that I’m a perfect mother, and when you left, I stood at the door and waved proudly, happy to have launched you and ready to move forward. But somehow it didn’t quite work that way for me. Yes, I am proud you launched so beautifully, and yes, I’m thrilled you’re independent and outspoken and honest and feisty. I hope I’ve contributed to that in some way. But there’s just something about you being halfway around the world, counseling grieving parents in that hospital, getting ready to marry, that is just a lot for me. I don’t do change well. Ironic, isn’t it? For you to have such a forward-thinking mom that dwells in the land of tomorrow most of the time, not like change. But when you love, dear daughter, sometimes you just want to keep those things and people you love close to you always. You don’t want them to die, or move on, or grow up. I don’t mean I don’t want you to grow up, but I guess I sort of do, because in my head you’re all those different ages, not just the person you are today. Please remember that if I get sappy or too clingy. You’re a newborn, a toddler, a preteen, a high schooler, a college graduate, and now, a beautiful woman, and I hold all those beings with me at the same time. I DO want you to keep growing, I do, I do, but for me? Can I please just have you five years old, just for a minute or two so we can cuddle a little bit while I read you a bedtime story and sing our special song, the one Grammy used to sing to me when I was little? Can we sit on the floor while I braid your hair, loving the feel of it silky in my hands, loving to primp and fuss with you. Do you think we’ll do that on your wedding day? I hope so, but if not, that’s okay, too.
I don’t know if all mothers feel this way, I don’t even know what it means that I DO feel this way, but I want to tell you that I love you more than anything in this entire Universe. I want you to feel that love with you always; when you’re scared, or sad, or lonely, or worried, or sick, or missing me. Especially when you’re missing me. Because, dear daughter, I miss you every second we’re not together. But in that pain comes the gratitude for the times when we ARE together. It makes it that much sweeter. I appreciate it more. We can never know more than this present moment, but I know that inevitably everything is exactly perfect and all right. If I COULD wish, I would wish that we could live in the same town, so I could be the best grandma in the world (someday, hopefully), and continue to share our lives as much as we can (or want).
Dear Kari, I wish you all the strength, and clarity, and support that I have. Walk boldly, knowing that you are well loved. Dear, dear daughter - how I love you. Mom