Commencement, A Mother's Story

When I finally sat down to think it through, on plastic seats in a stadium filled with caps and gowns, my son’s face somewhere in the crowd, I was stunned into silence. This last quarter century proved to be a long, slow, march to this exact moment.

I’ve done it. He’s done it, really. But, I’ve done it, too. I won’t gush about graduation or the pride that’s oozing from me like a barely contained oil spill. This is not about them, this is about the journey of motherhood.

I don’t mind that they grew up, in fact I’m grateful that they made it this far in a reality where this is not guaranteed. I promised myself I would love every phase as it came, each step. After all, change (in the words of the prophet, Octavia Butler) is the only sure thing. I have been successful at this.

Instead of focusing on the fact that no one snuggles up with me on the couch, I appreciate that I am no longer their social director, and only the dogs come at me with filthy paws.

This graduate is my last one. Just two, but still… I poured my whole heart into my boys. In fact they are one of the few places I expect nothing but a smile once in a while and a weekly phone call — both of which I’m flexible about, and I’ve rarely been disappointed. That I choose to dwell on. Out loud anyway.

There were times I doubted myself, my capacity to bring anything good into the world. It had to be a trick. It couldn’t work out. Perhaps they were too kind. Maybe they thought the rest of the world was as excessively passive as their father and I appear to be.

“No, Mom. No one is like you,” he assured me, giving my shoulder a playful squeeze. “Hard to miss that.”

I’ve learned just as much as they have from this journey, even if they never notice. And let’s face it, I have to live with the fact that some of the best moments of my life, they will never recall.

We were talking one day. “Do you remember when your brother was in soccer and we would grab obscene amounts of frozen yogurt and just chat?” I asked him.

I got only a vaguely annoyed shake of the head. This was not our first round of a “don’t-you-remember game.” In his defense, he couldn’t have been more than five.

I didn’t expect them to remember the trips we took them on as toddlers. I wanted to go and see things and I wanted, like I always did, like I do now, for them to be by my side.

“No, I don’t remember crying about the homeless guy in London,” he tells me, staring into his phone. But I do, I remember how touched he was, how he wanted to go back, how he’d eaten only half his meal to see if the man in the cardboard box was still there.

At his graduation in a place I wish I could have visited more, he and his roommates put out a barbecue for their parents. They wanted us all to meet and to thank us. It took my breath away.

“Basically, by high school I was taking care of myself,” I overheard him tell his friends.

But this is not true. There were meals and games and clubs and meets and lockdowns. He might not have noticed, but my life revolved around carpooling. It’s true I was also planning what my life would look like afterwards.

Once, my son told me he knew what I was doing while he was in daycare. “What?” I asked.

“When you’re not here,” he said, indicating his own heart, “you nap.”

Years ago on a soccer field, I found out he would be alright when in the middle of a heated game, with the tension on both teams rising, a kid began to throw around your mama insults.

“Yeah, that’s not what your mother said when she opened the door…”

The other kids began to close into this sacred your mama space. Mine turned to the loud mouth and then to me, “Let’s ask her,” he said to the guy suddenly.

“Mommy! Why would you let this guy in?”

Everyone laughed, tension diffused. I didn’t ever bring it up, but I keep it in a storehouse to take out when I worry about him.

I was recently telling someone about the time I got kicked out of the Brownies in elementary school.

“Why?” they asked, “What could you have done? Weren’t you 7 or something?”

This was a thing I’ve said about myself for so long that I hadn’t bothered to hold onto why. And then I remembered. I refused to say the Lord’s Prayer. As a Jewish girl, I somehow knew this one wasn’t aimed at me.

“Oh, just mouth it,” my mother begged. “Why are you always so difficult?” I’m not sure why. But I’m still trying to figure it out.

My son’s Kindergarten teacher told me he refused to color a Christmas Tree. I pulled him aside, “Just do it. Who cares? It’s a tree. God loves trees.” But even my reassurances didn’t help.

“Don’t be upset with him,” the teacher said to me quietly. “That stubbornness may serve him.”

I do feel bad now, like I could have been more understanding. I wonder how much of my parenting I’d change if I had more empathy for us both. I carry that lesson in my heart for him. Either way, he doesn’t remember.

Recently, I asked one of my kids what the hardest part of their childhood was. The list I would have for my parents had they asked, would have been exhaustive and has made me ripe for therapy and memoir for 50 years.

Once, I slapped one of the boys’ hands when he ran out into a busy parking lot. Its sting shocked us both at the time, but at least for him, the message got through.

He held my hand whenever a car was in a 50 foot radius without fail, for a very long time.

I braced myself for their answers to my question. How many times had I chosen my phone over them, or my friends, or a story? I was ready to hear about my failures.

“You didn’t let me play football,” one son said. “I could have been a linebacker.”

Like finding a toilet on a long, lonely stretch of highway, relief washed over me. Perhaps he’s right and I should have let him play, but the chances of him getting-a-concussion to being-in-the-NFL seemed like easy odds at the time.

It wasn’t all problem free, and like childbirth, time has a way of softening that memory. Nearly a quarter of my life was taken up by thinking about these kids, about maneuvering around them in a way that might be good for all of us. Through endless prep and vigilant paranoia, I’ve shown them who I hoped they would be. I never thought it would work, but they are both solid, loving men.

I got on the plane to head home after graduation, glowing in his success. He wouldn’t recognize the popcorn connections heating in my mind to that little boy who lit up my world for so long. He wouldn’t be thinking about the way he loved to jump into puddles, a game we called “poodling,” that other people might have hated, but always left me smiling even when the legs of my pants were wet, on my way to my “nap.”

And I understood suddenly, that these memories are mine and he shouldn’t have to cling to them.

The great irony of motherhood is that it’s ultimately a lonely business. When you do it well, they don’t have to remember.

A wonderful Mother’s Day to anyone brave enough to parent anything. May that small trove of memories hold its sacred shape inside of you. And may they call you, at least once a week.