When You're Gone...

I love my son, and I love being alone, two realities that have clashed for the past eighteen years. So, although I know I’m going to be sad when Jude hits the road in August for college, I have also been quite vocal about how it’s going to be when he’s gone.

“When you’re gone,” I tell him, “the fridge won’t be empty, and the sink won’t be full of dirty dishes every time I walk into the kitchen.”

“When you’re gone,” I say, “I will be able to walk past your room and not want to throw up from the mess.”

“When you’re gone,” I advise him, “I will not constantly be tripping over your collection of size 13 shoes that you’ve thoughtfully left strewn throughout the house.”

But lately, I’ve realized another thing: when he’s gone, I’m going to miss him.

It all came rushing at me this week when I got an email asking me to write a couple of words of encouragement to Jude for the “Applause” section of his spring musical program. (PS, the musical is The Secret Garden, March 3-5 at Grandview Heights High School. Go to www.grandviewschools.org for ticket information and more details!) Every year, I write something dumb and non-emotional, such as, “Hope you’re wearing clean socks! Break a leg, love Mom” or something like that. I mean, let’s be honest, I read through the parent comments every year and make fun of the ones that are all like, “Dear Chaslywick, ever since you started reading at age 2, your dad and I knew you were going to be a star. This year, when you won the state spelling bee, volunteered to help blind Eskimos and organized the teacher appreciation banquet, we were so proud of you. Enjoy Harvard next year, Love Momma and Poppy.” But, wouldn’t you know it, when it came time for me to write something for my son, to sum up the fact that this is the end….I had a hard time staying away from the dramatic.

This is the last time I am going to see him in a high school musical, and the beginning of a lot of ends for us – last swimming banquet, last choir concert, last track meet, last day of school, last time seeing friends and parents we’ve known since Kindergarten….last time he makes me laugh with his baby alien voice, last time he gets the things off of the high shelf for me...last time I can have a hug on demand…

And so, for the last time, I wrote out my parent appreciation comments. I reminded him of all of the different roles he’s played in his four years of high school, and told him he had always been a joy to watch on stage. And when he reads it, he won’t know that, as I wrote those words, I had tears in my eyes. He won’t know that, when I say that he is a joy to watch, I mean that he is a joy in every moment of my life. He won’t know that, although I am looking forward to having space and silence in my home, that I also genuinely do not know how I am going to exist without him in that space, filling up that silence.

So for now, although a part of me can’t wait for him to start the next part of his life, a part of me says, “When you’re gone, I will not miss your mess, your eating habits, or your personal hygiene, but I will miss seeing you succeed, and being there when you fail, and I will worry about you every day, my beautiful son. And most of all, I love you very, very much.”