A Mother Bereft

Our daughter Madeleine just returned to college, and on the way home from the airport I felt completely bereft. When she goes away, I feel as though my world contracts, and I lose a huge part of my life. There is a part of my brain that is always spinning with thoughts of her, where she is, what class she has or perhaps she's studying, what she's doing on Friday night, etc. When she is here my world expands to include her activities and our time with her, and when she leaves, so much seems gone. I wonder if that is what it's like when your children grow up and move away and your friends and family start to die and your world really does get smaller and smaller.

This was the first time she's been home from college where we just got to hang out together - no holidays, no whirling social life - and it was so wonderful. Waking her up in the morning, hugging her good night, setting a place for her at the table - all created the illusion that she was back home again, though in reality only for a while. While Barney and I worked and had and meetings, she saw her friends who were home from college as well. We managed to spend a lot of time together, talking and laughing, cooking together, watching a movie. On her last night home we made a wonderful dinner and played a favorite family board game, Mille Borne, to much hilarity and punctuated by Barney's puns. I felt honored that she chose to spend time with us instead of going out with her friends. On Sunday it was so beautiful, and we thought about a hike, but somehow all felt a bit too lazy for that. She packed, and then said how nice it would be to sit outside in the sun and read. So she helped us clean off the back porch and set up our picnic table on our newly-built driveway/patio. After that effort, we had some lovely cheese and bread and wine and just sat and talked. It was heaven. We are so lucky. She will be home in two months, and interviewed and now has a summer job here, so I hope it will be a good summer together.

A child departs, returns and departs again

In late August we took Madeleine to college, at Wellesley 3,000 miles from home. We had three fun days of being tourists in Boston, which helped her to get to know the city a bit better, using public transit. Then came a final trip to Bed Bath & Beyond - huge and busy with lots of college students coming to the Boston area. The day we moved her into the dorm, Barney was not feeling well, so Madeleine and I did most of the moving and unpacking - up three flights of stairs as the elevator was broken. And it was hot and muggy... the East Coast.  Her dorm is old and rather like something from a Harry Potter film, lots of beamed ceilings and stained glass. After the lunch and address by the President, and one last trip to her room to unpack some things, it was time to go. It even said "families depart" on the schedule, so that was pretty clear. Everyone started walking away in small groups, and we did the same, heading over toward the small lake on campus. We hugged tightly, all three of us, and cried more than a little bit. We all said we'd miss each other, but Barney and I reassured Madeleine that she was going into a wonderful new phase of her life with new friends and new experiences and we supported her fully. We walked her back to her dorm, watched her as she went up the path to the door ... and then as she opened the door to go in, I expected her to look back one last time, but instead in she went ... and into her new life. We saw many other tearful goodbyes and sniffling parents on our way back to the car. We got in, held each other tightly, and just cried for a while. We knew we'd miss her so much.

Last Sunday she left to return to college after Thanksgiving, and I realized all day that I was in a kind of mourning. We awakened very early that day to get her to the airport, and there were long hugs and a few tears as we parted, all too soon. I had rehearsal all day so was fairly occupied with that. But as I left rehearsal and checked my cellphone I saw that I had missed a voicemail from her a few hours before,after she had landed. I listened to it ... her voice, speaking in French (as she often does when in a public setting and she does not want people to know what she is saying), in tears on the bus back to school, telling us how much she missed us and everything about being home, how she did not want to be back at school, she wished she could have juts stayed in Oakland. I called her right away, and heard her, still crying, really inconsolate, being comforted by her wonderful roommate Nabeela. I tried not to cry, too, but it was hard, as I realized I just ached for her. By the end of the conversation she seemed better, saying she had a paper to finish before classes started the next day.

The next day, Monday, both my husband and I were quite down in the evening. we tried to cheer ourselves up, and had planned to do some Christmas decorating, but neither one of us really felt like it. We realized we were mourning her loss, realizing how large the hole was in our lives that had been filled for a few brief days. And I realized her sadness was a lot about missing us and some about missing Revels ... she has been a part of Revels since she was 10 years old. For almost half her life, Revels has been an intense and joyous part of the holiday season for her. And now she does not have this in her life, and the day she spent at rehearsal gave her a taste of what she was missing. When she played the role of the Lord of Misrule onstage during rehearsal, it looked so normal to see her standing there, just like she had for many years ... at one point I think the director forgot that she was not in the cast and left her onstage during chorus blocking. She loved being there, it was clear. In the evening, we had the group who sang and played on the lullaby CD, for a "listening party." The music was beautiful, and everyone was thrilled wit how the CD sounded. For me, it was delightful to be able to sit back and listen to the beauty of it, instead of looking for errors and edits that needed to be fixed, as Dave and Shira and I had been doing for many months. One of my main motivations in doing this was to be able to sing on the CD with Madeleine, and that dream was fulfilled. During editing it was hard for me to hold back tears when I heard her voice, and now when  listen to the music and hear her, as a solo, duet or just in her section, I tear up. I miss her so much.

Four Weeks Until She Leaves for College

And I think I'm already grieving. My daughter Madeleine starts at Wellesley College on the 25th of August, less than four weeks from now. She just returned from visiting friends in Paris and London - she's travelled to Paris several times and is fluent in French - but this was her first time travelling without an adult (parents or teachers) to intervene when the inevitable travel problems arose. I think I can say I've trained her well and she is confident in herself, because she dealt with various delays and cancellations with competence and maturity. She also had a great time on this well-deserved trip. And my husband Barney and I enjoyed ourselves, doing some things we have not done in a while, trying out new ventures like the Fire Arts Festival at the Crucible in Oakland, new restaurants, sailing in the tall ships parade, and more. I'm beginning to glimpse what it was like years ago before Madeleine was born... something we'll be learning a lot more about in the years to come. It's interesting how when a child has been such a big part of your life for 18 years, it is hard to imagine what it will be like when she is not there (almost) every day, enjoying the laughter and silly moments as well as the emotion and challenges. I'm sure there will be some serious feelings of emptiness - somehow I really dislike the phrase empty nest - feelings that as a young parent I could not have possibly imagined. Barney and I are incredibly proud of her and are confident she will do well as she launches into this new phase of her life. It does make me recall what it was like in those breathless early days of young adulthood when everything seemed new and possible ... and the possibilities are much greater for her than they were for me in 1974. So I will try to revel in her excitement and new achievements, allow myself to miss her loving companionship and sparkling personality, and hope that the love and guidance we gave her growing up will be a strong support in the exciting years ahead.