Launched.

The eldest child has left the building.

The other day, my man and I dropped our almost-22 year old university graduate off at the airport, said our farewells at the curb and watched him walk into the terminal to board his one-way flight to Sydney, Australia.

And just like I did after so many drop-offs, I got into the car and wept. Happy for him. Sad for me. Proud of him. And, to be honest, kind of proud of myself for raising such a brave and adventurous soul. When I was 22, I too boarded a one-way flight. Mine was to London, England for what was the beginning of a back and forth lifestyle until I returned to Toronto in time to celebrate my 31st birthday. 

I tell myself that if my mom could handle it, so could I. And that was before cel phones and facetime and whatsapp. Back then, we thought it was amazing when I could fax her rather than just call collect and hope she was home to answer.  

But Oz is truly a land far, far away. The time and money to get there is a long way from the Toronto – London flight path and time change. My mom used to come see me a few times a year, and I came home on a somewhat regular basis. It didn’t even occur to me that she might cry tears of joy and pain with each flight, though she did get a little salty every time I packed my bag, and she never did drive me to the airport… 

Raising our kids really is a particular kind of torture. We love them as hard as we can and then send them away and hope for the best. Like some kind of break-up, we never know when “the last time” will be. We just accept that they no longer try to sneak into our beds, or grab our hands, or call out for us at any time day or night. The need recedes. When Leo left for University, it was “the end of the beginning”. His childhood, as we knew it, was over. But this is something else entirely. This is a one way trip to adulthood, to making and living with his own choices. There is no graduation date. It’s just forward propulsion until he lands somewhere. Somewhere, hopefully, somewhat close to home. 

Yes. We still have two more birdies in our nest, though one is more than halfway through university with big travel plans on the horizon, and the other is finishing up his last year of high school and trying to figure out what’s next. And, no, just because we’ve gone through it with the first one, it is not any easier with the second. Or, soon enough, the third.  Our family dynamic is in a constant state of flux as each one comes and goes, bringing with them noise and mess and very large shoes. We get used to them being back, and then they leave again and we re-learn how to be a smaller unit. And so it goes, over and over again, leaving stretch marks on my heart with each contraction and expansion, each goodbye and welcome home…

Lucky me. 

NOT Mother’s Day

I hate Mother’s Day. Like, really, really hate it. I always have. I hated it when I was young and childless and I truly abhorred it once I became a mother. I thought it was a fake holiday made for people who didn’t have a great relationship with their mothers. It felt like an excuse for the kid to acknowledge the mother “for a change”. But, for me, someone who spoke to her mom multiple times a day, hung out with her all the time, and – as an adult – made dinners/brunches for her on a regular basis, it was ridiculous. 

When my kids were little, I couldn’t understand why I, in the midst of “actively mothering” had to run around making plans/meals/reservations for the grandmothers. Shouldn’t Mother’s Day – if you had to celebrate it – be for the young moms in the trenches with their kids? Shouldn’t it be a day where we could NOT mother and just take some time for ourselves? I figured Mother’s Day should be for moms with kids 0-13 and then it should be over. 

My own mother, however, was obsessed with Mother’s Day. She claimed it was her most favourite day of the year. I think she preferred her birthday, but she insisted it was Mother’s Day: “because nothing was more important than being a mother”. She even bought me a gift on Mother’s Day – for making her a mother. 

Eventually, we found a happy medium: I’d be with my kids in the morning, we’d do one meal with the kids with her, one meal with my mother-in-law, and my mom and I would go and spend some time together on our own somewhere in between. More often than not, I’d take her to a movie. In the years when nothing was playing, we’d walk the streets or hang out in her apartment. While I still loathed the “holiday”, I knew how much it meant to her, and thus an uneasy peace was established. 

And then my mom died, suddenly, in January. There were no goodbyes, no last minute wishes. I FaceTimed her on a Friday night, and she fell and never recovered on the Saturday morning. Make no mistake, it has been extremely, overwhelmingly, difficult. I look for her everywhere and miss her terribly. She was one-in-a-million, and yes, I know everyone says that about their own moms, but everyone says that TO me about MY mom. I won’t rehash the eulogies from her funeral (which was apparently “fabulous” – for a funeral – and can be watched here) but she was something else. She was Rosemary, which says it all for those who knew her.

Since January 24th, there have been a handful of “firsts” that have been horrible: first Valentine’s Day (she loved that holiday too), first time landing after a flight and not calling her to say I’d arrived safely, first vacation in her condo without her there, first Passover. Each was more emotionally hideous than the next. And with each “first” I found myself in touch with other members of the 2024 freshman cohort of the Dead Parent’s Club: a truly vile club in which we all, eventually, become members. We were all going through it. And it sucked.

As Mother’s Day loomed, I prepared for the worst of the firsts. I knew it would suck, I knew I’d be devastated. I knew if would be terrible.

I posted a picture of my mom and my kids on social media, and braced myself. 

And then something funny happened… I received the most amazing gifts: a ton of notes and texts and calls. Some made me laugh, some made me cry. Hard. Because they were so moving, so loving, and so wonderful. I cried tears of joy, not because I missed my mom on Mother’s Day. Hell, I miss my mom every day! In fact, I hate to say it, but yesterday was one of the best Mother’s Days I’ve ever had. There was no pressure, my kids and husband were total superstars, and my friends – and my mother’s friends – all showed up in the most meaningful ways.

In the end, I finally got the Mother’s Day I’d always wished for – and the one I never, ever wanted.