He’s Leaving

I’m standing in the doorway, watching my son play the piano. He plays piano for two hours every night when he comes home from school. 

He doesn’t read music because he never learned how. His dyslexia made it hard for him and made learning a chore. We found a different way, and now his music just flows freely from one piece to another, a natural melody he never had to learn how to play. 

I don’t know what tonight‘s concert will be, but he always gives me a smile when he plays something he knows I love to sing. Tonight, I’m here with tears in my eyes, realizing that the nightly concerts have an expiration date and that the medleys I love to hear whenever he feels moved to sit at the piano are numbered. I try to sing “Total Eclipse Of The Heart,” but my voice cracks. Luckily, he is singing so loud he doesn’t notice.

This moment will never happen again.

I have done my work and gotten him to where he’s supposed to be. I know that I should be happy, and I am, but the pain is also so palpable. It feels like a gut punch to my chest. I know he is where he is supposed to be. I know that the work we’ve done together, from Kindergarten through Senior year, got him to where he is supposed to be. I know that this is right. I know that this is what he should be doing. I know that he is prepared. I am grateful for the fact that he is prepared. But on the other hand, I never thought he would be here. 

I look back on his life, and I think. How could he be here? How did this happen? 

I see him as two people. I see him as the child he was—sunshine and flowers, laughing all the time, and draining my energy because he was built to be happy and outgoing. He had to be “on” constantly, and this introverted mom just needed a break. But I look back and think, ” Wow, how I miss that kid.” I even miss the noise, the constant questions, and all the times he said, “Mommy, come here. ” God, I miss him. 

Now, I have this teen. He is so smart; I might even describe him as aggressively smart. He has the ability to have so many amazing arguments. So much information lives in that skull; when we talk, we really talk, and when he argues, he really argues. And I can’t wait to get a break sometimes because this introverted mom needs a break.

I know I will see him as three people someday. Soon, I will see the child who showed his creativity in every moment of his life, that bright, young sunshine child. I will see this teen, the one who came home and played piano every day for two hours and argued incessantly about things that were already said, arguing solely for the sake of arguing. 

Soon, boy number three will come. He will be a mature young adult in college. He will be living on his own, taking care of himself, doing his own laundry, not having to be told to do his homework, not having to be told to pick up his room, not having to be woken up for school every morning. He will be an independent young man. He will come home and be somebody who has grown- someone different than who he has been- and who he is now. He will be somebody who sees me differently, too. This new person, boy number three- will be standing before me.

In those moments, I will grieve boy number one, the little one, and boy number two, the teen. But I will embrace this new young adult while holding onto who he once was.

I will grieve, and I will see him, and I will be proud, and I will grieve. 

I can be proud and grieve at the same time because that is something a Mom can do. Moms can grieve the child they had when they watch their child grow up and transform; it doesn’t mean that we love them any less; in fact, it probably means that we love them more. 

I love him, and I am so proud of this incredible young man he has become. I can say that with tears streaming down my face, and I can say that in happiness and sadness all at the same time, I can feel it all together, woven like a tapestry—the tapestry of motherhood, the tapestry of being a mom.