“Mama, give your love back to your husband.”
Such an obnoxious line from a son/song. First heard when my boys were babes, and now their birthdays make me sad, 23 & 18, the youngest leaving in ten days, the other long gone, home for a short stay to celebrate his special day.
But don’t I find myself cuddling up toward my husband more, like that guy in Maine with the old coon dog he had around the place on that bitter three-dog winter’s night.
And perhaps the most telling:
This morning I recombined our laundry after separating mine from his (and theirs), almost twenty years ago, a radical act of a new mother’s individuation then, an unexpected act of cleaving now.
The Empty Nest Diary 