Tag: grief

Posted in Mid-Life Mama, Milestone Moments, Round Two, School, Teens

Mommy Graduation

Posted on by Kelly (and the Buck)
DSCN3500
Mommies graduate too!

Earlier this month I experienced mounting anxiety as my youngest approached graduation; but not because he wasn’t ready.

It was me.

flat,1000x1000,075,fI’ve devoted a lifetime to children, and not just the past 21 years to my boys and their school; but the decade before that to the children in my classroom, and even the decades before that, to my seven younger siblings.

Underneath the separation anxiety is
GRIEF,
and underneath that,
a deeper truth:

I AM READY!

I’ve been ready.

But the readiness doesn’t diminish the loss.
The vacuum.
Where there once was Everything.

hot-airLast night, he graduated.
I graduated.
(From the last of them.)

My baby will leave the hill that shaped our lives together,
and head to town,
to the high school,
where his father teaches.

And me?
How do I feel?
That’s what people ask, expecting
sorrow.

I barely slept.
I tossed and turned and fretted.

It may have been the champagne,
but I kept thinking of bubbles
and all things
that float…
up.

Finally, my mind settled in on
balloons,
and then to a single
hot
air
balloon,

and the way,

SHE RISES,

as she lightens

the
load.

Posted in Milestone Moments, Teens

Tall. Taller. Tallest.

Posted on by Kelly (and the Buck)

imagesI’ve watched it happen. I’ve waited for it to happen. I’ve measured it repeatedly. Measured us against one another.

And he’s come close. But I’ve remained. His mother. Taller. By a lot. And then a little. And a little less. And a little less than that.

Until today.

I saw it coming…

He’s been home sick. On the couch. His neck. His chest. Some how broadening, right there, in front of me. His back, his silhouette, becoming a man’s, swiping the child inside.

This morning I sat in the kitchen, and he passed me, noticing… something.

“You look small,” he said. “Stand up so that I don’t feel so tall.”

And I did.

And then, we did, what we’ve done, all year long.

Stood back to back.
Called for someone to come compare us.

It was his older brother who broke the news. We held our breaths. He chided his younger brother to stop tilting his head to make himself taller. And then he spoke the words that I’ve been waiting for. Been resisting. Known would come.

“Aidan is taller.”

A wide grin broke across my 13 year old’s face.

I took a seat.

(Tears sprung to my eyes.)