The message on my voicemail is getting familiar. “This is the attendance office calling to notify you that your child was marked absent during the following periods….”
When my high-school senior called during school hours, I could tell from the background noise that she wasn’t at school.
“Where are you?” I asked.
There was a pause.
“I’m in the city shopping for swimsuits,” she said. “We’re allowed five unexcused absences.”
I remembered her learning to count.
When I began to fret, her freshman brother tried to comfort me, “She’s an angel compared to other seniors, mom.”
“I’m still her mother,” I said to him.
The craziness of Senior Spring is upon us–– that attitude of “we’re out of here soon, so let’s live for today” is what keeps mothers awake. Ask most adults and they remember spring of their senior year. Most don’t remember their mother.
The recent bulletin home from the school confirms my uneasiness. “Senior Reminder: to maintain appropriate behavior for the last few days of school.”
Graduation is this week. Today I’m taking the younger brothers in for haircuts. Grandparents arrive the day after tomorrow. I bought a new dress for me and made reservations at an Italian restaurant for 7:00 after the 4:00 graduation ceremony. I started the day making lists.
But more than all of these details, is the hope and prayer that I’ve done enough right.
Tomorrow my daughter turns 18. Two days later, she graduates from high school. The other day she asked me to go shopping with her so she could select bedding for her college dorm room. This was the week before finals.
“We’ll have time this summer,” I said.
But she’s D-O-N-E.
I’m reminded of being pregnant. There was a lovely time, maybe it lasted a few weeks–– it was between morning sickness and swollen feet and I loved being pregnant. I loved feeling the baby move inside of me, her stretches and hiccups, her graceful swirls and twirls. I remember seeing a foot glide across my belly pushing my skin from the inside out. I could see the imprint of a tiny heel, the ball of the foot and toes. Otherworldly? Definitely.
And then the mystery and awe of that time gave way to physical discomfort. She elbowed my rib. She kicked my bladder. I had indigestion and ate antacids all day and all night. I waddled. I didn’t sleep. She wanted out. She wanted more room. I wanted her out. And then she was born.
And now, at age almost 18, she’s ready to go again. I watched her clean out her closet and give two bags of clothes to neighbor girls. Early this morning, she was stressed trying to print out a high school physics portfolio, but how much can it really matter when you’ve already packed for college?
Even the phone call from my mother-in-law added to my concerns.
“We didn’t want to fly in on her 18th birthday. I remember my 18th birthday, and I sure wouldn’t have wanted my grandparents around.”
When the children were young, I didn’t go to church regularly. I found the daycare centers germ-infested and the stress of getting everyone ready and out the door not worth it. But these days I go. I go every Sunday and I stop in church mid-week as well. I’m asking for help. God’s help.
As a teenager, I remember touring cathedrals in Italy and France with my family. In every church, there were towering arches, beautiful stained glass windows and tiny old women kneeling and mumbling prayers on worn wooden pews.
I had no idea why the women were there. Now I know.
I don’t know how to let a child go. It’s against everything I’ve been creating as a mother–– arms to hold her, a home to hold her, a school that would hold her–– until she started kicking.
She’s starting to outgrow the house. She’s starting to outgrow me. I suppose this means my job is almost D-O-N-E. Words of wisdom I say don’t matter anymore, don’t stick. From her perspective, I’m overprotective, worry too much, am overly concerned with safety and consequences and basically, know nothing.
The more I talk, advise, suggest, counsel, fret, beg, plead, threaten, get angry, cry… tell stories from my life, tell stories from friends’ lives, use fancy metaphors and plain English, the more she’s ready to go.
“Grandpa had a dear friend who died spring of his senior year,” my husband told our daughter during a serious conversation.
Later I asked my husband about it. “I never heard that story,” I said.
“I made it up,” he said.
When church service ends, I find comfort and inspiration when the minister says, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”
Can you imagine me saying to my daughter as she’s on her way out the door to her fifth graduation party, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”?
What can I say to her? To myself?
Know that when you go that I did the best I could, in my wounded way, in my human way. That I loved you. And will always love you. And I release you. I release you as I always should have into the hands of God. Who is there always for you, who has always been there for you. Who will guide you in ways I can’t. Who will show you your purpose, in ways I’m not meant to. Who will love you through people and places I will not know. You are here for important reasons, to do important work, to shine in your way and your way alone.
I’m sorry I didn’t take you to church, that you don’t have a more traditional hand-off. But I didn’t find God in church. I found God in you. In the mystery of being pregnant, of a tiny newborn reaching her hand out to grab mine. In your first laugh. Dad and I marveled with awe at your every new stage. You made us see the beauty that is life. And because you changed so quickly, you reminded us that life is fleeting and if we didn’t notice-–– breeding hamsters, wearing braces, having lemonade stands–– it was over. So we tried to notice and to savor.
Last Saturday I spent the day going through old pictures to create a collage for graduation. I saw pictures from everything—cake decorating to dance recitals, stuffed animal birthday parties to high school prom.
I called a friend of mine that evening, “I had the best day,” she said, “I spent all day in my garden.”
I laughed. “So did I,” I said. “So did I.” What a beautiful garden of memories and love it is.
These days, the teenagers look young and the women praying in church don’t look so old.
I slide into a wooden pew and all I can say to God is, “Watch over her. Guide her. And if you love her half as much as I do, it will be enough.”
