“It’s odd,” I said to Destini this morning, “to watch your kids grow up and move on with their lives…I rarely hear from Heather anymore.”
“Well,” she said, “I probably won’t call every day when I move out either.”
“WHAT?????!!!”
“Uhm….I mean….I’m sure I’ll live at home until you die of old age and there will be no need to call…” she corrected.
It’s such a transformation, this aging of our children. Watching them become individuals, grown-ups, real-life-people. I know we plan for this their whole lives. We raise them with all the hope that they will be able to support themselves and be independent.
And then…when they are…it somehow surprises us.
I joke that I can’t wait until my kids are grown and gone…hallelujah, I claim will be my response upon their departure. The house to myself. Freedom to do whatever I want. Oh…the blessed silence.
But what I really want is for them to never…ever…leave me. I want all my kids to build little houses on my property…that’s a lot of houses…and raise their families where I can watch, if even from afar.
I picture my own lovely mother-in-law, far away in California, her seven children spread all over the globe…grandchildren and great-grandchildren she rarely gets to cuddle…and I’m afraid I see my future. I think of how seldom we call her…and how that must make her feel: sad to not hear, yet proud of the lives they’ve built.
And it’s my own fault. I’ve done this to myself. I’ve raised my kids to be thinkers. To support themselves. To seek the world and not stop looking until they’ve found it.
If I have my way, I’ll have at least a couple of kids that don’t find their way out into the world. That live in the basement and eat all my food. That need me.
And when they’re thirty-seven years old and still down there, with their four kids and a live-in…I’ll kick them out on their own. I will. But it will be on my terms…my decision.
And then I’ll never suffer the gut wrenching sweet sorrow of watching a child grow up…walk away…and succeed.
